Travel guide: Chizhou Jiuhuashan Airport, China (JUH)

Rising above the city of Chizhou in China's Anhui province, Jiuhuashan is one of the four sacred mountains of Chinese Buddhism, alongside Wutai, Emei, and Putuo, and it has drawn pilgrims for well over a thousand years as the earthly seat of the bodhisattva Ksitigarbha, venerated here as the guardian of souls in the underworld. Unlike a purely scenic mountain, Jiuhuashan functions as a living monastic complex: dozens of temples and monasteries are scattered across its slopes, many still home to resident monks and nuns, which gives a visit here a different texture than a typical Chinese mountain resort.

Chizhou Jiuhuashan Airport sits close to the mountain and was built specifically to serve pilgrims and tourists heading to the site, a rare case of a regional Chinese airport named directly for the destination it exists to support; flights are mostly domestic and connect through larger hubs like Shanghai or Hefei. Once on the mountain, Huacheng Temple is usually the starting point, reputed to be the oldest temple on Jiuhuashan and the historical center of its Buddhist community. Tiantai Peak, the mountain's highest point, is reachable by cable car followed by a stepped climb, and its temple at the summit gives sweeping views back over the lower slopes. The Jiuhua Big Buddha, a large bronze standing statue completed in the early 2010s, is one of the newer landmarks and visible from a considerable distance across the valley.

Getting between temples means walking stone paths and stairs, supplemented by shuttle buses that run set routes up and down the mountain, since private cars are restricted in the core scenic area; comfortable footwear matters more here than almost anywhere else on a Chinese itinerary. Spring and autumn bring the most comfortable temperatures and clearer mountain air, while summer can be humid and prone to mist that obscures the views, and the mountain's religious festivals, tied to the lunar calendar, bring the largest crowds of pilgrims rather than a typical tourist high season.