First for me is Le Passage, a French country-style bolthole. It was one of the first of the new generation of retreats to open in Moganshan, in 2011. I’m escorted up a set of stone steps to the hotel’s hilltop mansion, dubbed La Residence, crisp starlight illuminating the rose-lined path. At the top of the hill, a broad terrace and private pool reflects the moonlight.

Le Passage and La Residence both sit inside Moganshan National Park. Inside its vast boundary, the Sword Pond and its waterfall emerge from a sea of bamboo forests, while Reed Catkin Marsh Park provides a green lawn and gazebos for lounging about in the shrubbery.

The park has numerous hiking trails, mountain biking routes, lakes and the Bamboo Sea forest. Parrotbills start chatting at the crack of dawn while Chinese bamboo partridges are heard (but hardly seen) squawking in the woods. This setting was the location of a memorable scene from 2000’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, when Chow Yun-fat and Zhang Ziyi fly over the bamboo trees.

Important point: Moganshan is the mountain itself, and the summer resort village built on its summit by foreigners and wealthy Chinese in the early 1900s. It is now a ‘national level scenic area’, with an entry fee. But the name Moganshan is now applied to a vast area surrounding the actual mountain and village. La Residence, for example, is a half hour drive from the mountain resort itself.