Weiyang Palace was the largest palace of the Han dynasty, and its ruins lie on the north-western edge of modern Xi'an in a flat expanse of fields and low earth mounds. Built in the early years of the Han, around two hundred years before the Common Era, under the chancellor Xiao He, the palace lay at the heart of the capital Chang'an and served as the seat of government for most of the Western Han and later dynasties. The site is reputed to be about six times the area of the Forbidden City in Beijing, and it is part of the UNESCO-listed Silk Roads network that began at Chang'an and ran west across Asia.
Chang'an in the Han period was one of the two largest cities in the world, comparable with Rome, and the trade that flowed out of it carried silk, lacquer, bronze and tea westward, while horses, grapes, glass and ideas came back. Zhang Qian, the envoy who travelled west on the orders of the emperor, brought back the first reliable reports of Central Asia. At Weiyang there is little left to see in the way of walls and halls, only rammed-earth foundations, a few reconstructed gate sites and a museum, but the scale is impressive, and there is a kind of austere pleasure in standing in a vast empty field and knowing that it was once the centre of an empire.
Xi'an is a rich place to visit by other means. The Terracotta Army lies east of the city, the Ming city wall can be walked or cycled in an afternoon, and the Muslim Quarter fills each evening with grills, sweet shops and the smell of cumin and charcoal. Eat biangbiang noodles, wide hand-pulled ribbons in chilli oil, or a roujiamo, a stuffed bun of braised pork, and drink a small glass of sour plum juice.
Riding is limited to the city and its surroundings. Foreign riders in China need local permits and often a guide, so check carefully, and traffic in Xi'an is dense, with taxis, buses and electric scooters filling every lane. South of the city the Qinling mountains rise steeply, and the roads into them are among the best in the region, with tunnels and hairpins. Fuel stations are everywhere in the city. Spring and autumn are the best seasons, because summers are hot and humid, and winters are cold and grey.