Guilin

Guilin lies about 410 km (255 miles) northeast of Nanning in northeastern Guangxi, and the fastest way there is high-speed rail from Nanning East to Guilin West or Guilin North, taking about 2.5-3 hours each way, with second-class fares commonly in the ¥120-180 ($17.93-26.89) band; this makes for a long but workable single day if the schedule is planned carefully. Guilin is famous for its karst limestone peaks rising directly from the Li River and the city's lakes, and a single day realistically covers a handful of core sights rather than the full Li River cruise, which needs more time. A typical itinerary takes an early-morning high-speed train, arriving at Guilin station by mid-morning, then uses city buses or taxis to reach Elephant Trunk Hill, the karst formation where the Li and Taohua rivers meet and one of the city's most photographed landmarks, followed by a walk around the Two Rivers and Four Lakes area, a landscaped waterway loop through the city centre. The afternoon suits a visit to Reed Flute Cave, a limestone cavern with coloured lighting over stalactites and stalagmites, before returning to the station in time for an evening train back to Nanning. Lunch is best taken near Zhengyang pedestrian street in central Guilin, which has a dense concentration of restaurants serving Guilin rice noodles, the city's signature dish, alongside other Guangxi specialties. Onward trains from Guilin to Yangshuo take only about 30 minutes and connect to the most scenic stretch of the Li River, but adding Yangshuo to the same day pushes the itinerary past what a single day can realistically absorb given the return journey to Nanning; travellers wanting both are better served by an overnight stay. April-May and September-November give the clearest skies for photographing the karst peaks, while summer brings more rain and haze that can obscure the distant hills.