Taiyuan rewards patience. The city centre is modern and not especially attractive, but the surrounding area contains some of the finest religious and historical sites in Shanxi: Jinci Temple with its Song-dynasty sculpture, the Tianlongshan cave grottoes, the only surviving Taoist grotto complex in China at Longshan, and the Shanxi Museum's extraordinary Bronze Age collection. Two days is the minimum to see the main sights; three allows a more relaxed pace.