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Give Kunming two days on the way west, not a stopover of two hours
Most people treat the Spring City as a transfer to Dali and Lijiang. It repays a day or two: Green Lake with its Siberian gulls in winter, the university lanes off Wenlin Street, the Yuantong Temple under its cliff, and weather that never gets extreme. Trains to Dali take about two hours and Lijiang about three, and they leave from two stations — **Kunming** in the city and **Kunming South** far out on metro line 1. Check which one is on your ticket the day before, not on the morning.
Two stations, and the fast one is not the near one
**Pingyao Ancient City** takes the high-speed trains — about half an hour from Taiyuan, three hours from Xi'an, four from Beijing — and is a short taxi from the walls. The old **Pingyao** station is nearer the gate but serves slow trains only. Book the high-speed leg ahead in season and tell your guesthouse which station you are arriving at; most will send someone, because taxi drivers at the ancient-city station are not always keen on a five-minute fare.