Xiangyang's Tang City, the Chang'an built for one film, and the real walls across town

Toward dusk, the lanterns come on along the main avenue of Tang City and the plaster gate turns the colour of old ivory. A woman in a rented Tang robe, with a high-waisted skirt and a long shawl over her arms, waits for the light to fall right across a hanging shop sign. Her photographer kneels on stone that was poured to look like a thousand-year-old road. None of this is Chang'an. It sits on the edge of Xiangyang, a mid-sized city in northern Hubei, and it was built so that one film could have a capital to burn its lanterns in.

A capital built for one film

Tang City (唐城, Tángchéng) was built as the main set for Legend of the Demon Cat (妖猫传, Yāomāo Zhuàn), a lavish fantasy set in eighth-century Chang'an. When the shoot ended, the set stayed up and became a ticketed park. Visitors walk the same broad avenue, pass under the same gate tower, and drift into a market quarter modelled on Chang'an's West Market (西市, Xīshì), the district where the Silk Road's merchants once traded.

The scale is the first surprise. Film sets are usually shallow, and parts of this one are too, but the main axis runs long enough that the far end blurs in summer haze. The timber hall with layered eaves, which the film used for its great banquet, stands above the roofs of the market. Signboards in old-style calligraphy hang over shopfronts that now sell skewers, fruit tea and paper fans.

What the camera saw, and what you see

Stay on the avenue and the illusion mostly holds. Step down a side lane and it thins out quickly. Some facades are a single storey deep, with scaffolding and bare board behind them. Painted columns sound hollow when a child knocks on them, and the "stone" steps are worn in places to show the grey render underneath.

This is the part worth looking at. You can see exactly how much a camera needs and how much it doesn't. A ninety-degree turn of the lens hides almost everything behind the fronts, and the park's busiest photo corners sit at precisely the angles the film framed. Costume studios near the entrance rent Tang-style hanfu (汉服, hànfú), do hair and makeup, and sometimes send a photographer along. On busy days the queue for makeup can take longer than the walk.

Evenings bring staged performances and more lighting. The programme changes with the season, so check the park's official account before planning around a particular show.

The real wall across town

Xiangyang does not need a set to look old. The walled district of Xiangcheng (襄城, Xiāngchéng) keeps long stretches of its brick city wall. The moat (护城河, hùchénghé) is broad enough that from the outer bank the wall looks like an island. Morning walkers circle it on the waterside path, and men fish from the stone edges with long rods.

Walk north up Beijie (北街, Běijiē), the pedestrian street that runs from Zhaoming Terrace (昭明台, Zhāomíng Tái) to the river. It ends at Linhan Gate (临汉门, Línhàn Mén), the north gate, which looks straight out over the Han River (汉江, Hànjiāng). Beijie itself has been restored, and its shopfronts are about as new as Tang City's. The gate and the wall beside it are not. Next to the set, the texture gives it away. These bricks have been rained on, patched and rubbed smooth at hand height.

Across the river lies Fancheng (樊城, Fánchéng), the commercial half of the twin city. The Mi Fu Memorial Hall (米公祠, Mǐ Gōng Cí), dedicated to the Song-dynasty calligrapher, keeps rows of stone tablets carved with his brushwork. They make a quiet counterweight to the set's painted signboards.

Breakfast with a cup of morning wine

Xiangyang starts the day with beef noodles (襄阳牛肉面, Xiāngyáng niúròu miàn). The bowl arrives under a slick of chilli-red beef fat, with either sliced beef or offal (牛杂, niúzá) on top. Order and pay at the counter first, then carry your ticket or receipt to the window where the noodles are blanched.

一碗牛肉面，一杯早酒。

That line, "one bowl of beef noodles, one cup of morning wine", sums up the local habit called zaojiu (早酒, zǎojiǔ). Many noodle shops keep a vat of cloudy, sweetish rice wine that Xiangyang calls huangjiu (黄酒, huángjiǔ), ladled into a small bowl or cup. It is milder than it sounds, and the sweetness cuts the chilli. Nobody will press it on you, and plenty of tables drink tea or nothing at all.

Go early. Some of the best-known shops wind down once the breakfast rush is over, and the beef fat tastes best before the pot has sat all morning.

Getting there, and when to go

Most visitors come by high-speed rail to Xiangyang East (襄阳东站, Xiāngyáng Dōngzhàn), which has connections from Wuhan and Zhengzhou. Don't confuse it with the older Xiangyang Railway Station (襄阳站), which handles many conventional trains and sits in a different part of the city. Check which station is printed on your ticket before you hail a car. From either station, a taxi or ride-hailing car is the simplest way to reach both the walled district and Tang City.

Spread the trip over two days. Spend a morning on the wall, the moat path and Beijie. Arrive at Tang City in the late afternoon so you can watch the lanterns come on and see the set in its best light. Spring and autumn are the comfortable seasons. Midsummer in Hubei is humid, and much of Tang City has little shade.

Ticket prices, evening-show schedules and any combined passes are set by the park and change with the season and holidays. Confirm them through Tang City's official channels or at the ticket office. Hours for the Mi Fu Memorial Hall and the wall-top sections are posted on site. The mistake to avoid is treating the set as the whole story. Tang City shows you what a film needed Chang'an to look like. The wall across town, with its uneven bricks, is the real thing the set was copying.