Solitary Beauty Peak

This guide to Solitary Beauty Peak in Guilin traces the carving at its base, seven characters written by a Song-dynasty official around the turn of the thirteenth century that became one of the most repeated lines about this region, then reaches back to the fifth-century exiled poet who first named the peak, and forward to the Ming prince who built his palace against its rock in the thirteen-seventies. You'll pass the cave where that poet is said to have studied by candlelight on your way up the three hundred and six steps to the summit pavilion.