The EndJiuzhaigou and Huanglong is situated at the edge of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau in the northwest corner of the province of Sichuan in central China. It is about 30-40 minutes from the provincial capital of Chengdu by plane. The airport is the third highest in the world at 3400m.

Jiuzhaigou in Chinese means the ‘Gully of the Nine Mountain Villages’. Huanglong means ‘Yellow Dragon’. The name is given to the cascading valley, which looks like a winding yellow dragon amongst the high Alpine forest.

The music was written in 1890 by the Italian Pietro Mascagni (1863 – 1945) for the opera Cavalleria Rusticana. It is known as the Intermezzo from ‘Cavelleria Rusticana’. In my view it is one of the most beautiful piece of music ever written.