Quanzhou on foot: the two-kilometre spine where four faiths kept their addresses

Most people arrive in Quanzhou (泉州) for one temple and leave carrying a street. The old town's spine runs roughly two kilometres, from a Buddhist courtyard down to a hall built for the sea goddess, and along the way a mosque, a set of Hindu columns and a shrine to a war god all kept their addresses. For three centuries this was the port where everyone's god needed housing, and nobody bothered to sort them into districts afterwards.

Begin at Kaiyuan Temple, early

Two stone pagodas stand in the courtyard of Kaiyuan Temple (开元寺), Zhenguo to the east and Renshou to the west, both over forty metres and both still upright after the 1604 earthquake that took down a good deal else. Inside the main hall the ceiling beams carry carved winged musicians; behind it stand two columns cut with scenes from the life of Vishnu, salvaged from a Hindu temple that no longer exists anywhere in the city. There is no signage insisting you notice.

Down Xijie, with breakfast in hand

Xijie (西街) starts at the temple gate and does not perform for anyone. Breakfast is mianxian hu (面线糊), thread-thin noodles suspended in a thickened broth, ordered by pointing at whatever you want dropped in; a fried dough stick goes in the other hand. Give the street forty minutes rather than ten, because the shopfronts change register every twenty metres.

The mosque, then the water

On Tumen Street, a granite gateway dated 1009 opens into Qingjing Mosque (清净寺). The prayer hall lost its roof to an earthquake and was never rebuilt, so the walls now frame sky. Twenty metres along, Guandi Temple burns enough incense to make your eyes water. Keep south and the walk ends at Tianhou Palace (天后宫), the oldest surviving hall to the sea goddess Mazu, with the excavated foundation of the old Deji Gate sitting in the square outside.

Nothing on this street was built as heritage. It was built as infrastructure for somebody's faith, and then it simply stayed.

泉州人形容自己的城：半城烟火，半城仙。

Three hours if you keep moving, half a day if you sit down properly, which is the point. Go on a weekday morning; the light in the Kaiyuan courtyard is better before ten, and the noodle shops thin out by nine.