Shangri-La City, Yunan, China 28 Jan 2017
About this photo
"Never had Shangri-La offered more concentrated loveliness to the eye; the valley lay imagined over the edge of the cliff, and the image as of a deep unrippled pool that matched the peace of his own thoughts." In 1933, James Hilton created a world of elegance and mystery set high in the mountains of Tibet. Following the evocative novel The Lost Horizon, the world cried out for an answer to Shangri-La.
The hotel chain, Shangri-La, tried to answer by using James Hilton's concept as a design. However, they couldn't deliver the surroundings portrayed in The Lost Horizon with every hotel.
On 17th December 2001, Zhongdian in Yunnan province, China, changed its name to Shangri-La City in a bid to promote tourism. This was it. In this city, blue mist descends down the snow-capped mountains into the valley as the sun rises creating an ethereal haze across this little-visited place. Add a stay in this intriguing destination to Insight Guides' Tantalising Tibet trip.
