Pingyao is a rather small Chinese city (only half a million inhabitants) that due to its vanished importance maintained its historical center protected by restored city walls. Former courtyards are transformed into hotels and hostels, but kept the historic interior making us sleep like an emperor from the Qing dynasty. The bed was simply build by brick stones with a thin layer of mattress on top. Pillows felt like filled with rice and the whole thing was framed in pink curtains. We had a perfect night sleep.
However, as few foreigners as you meet her as many Chinese tourist visit this place and made a point about living inside a tourist attraction (we also seemed to be a big attraction and were saved on many phones and memory cards).
Anyway Pingyao is lovely. Our tour around on the city wall was nearly as lonely as in the woods, the courtyard museums are good and short afternoon entertainment (included in the ticket for the wall for 15€!) …
… and whenever we headed outside the wall we left the touts behind us and were met with a mixture of friendliness and curiosity. Actually eating out get a whole new meaning, since food was a lot better and cheaper outside the walls.