ELEPHANT MOUNTAIN

Raw nature in the middle of Taipei! Close to the business district of Xinyi, this mountain, which offers magnificent hiking trails, has something to surprise you. Just a stone's throw from an ultra-modern residential complex, a small temple marks the entrance to the path that leads to the heights of the city. Be careful, although a staircase allows you to reach the top of the first hill, the slope is steep and untrained walkers may suffer. But it's worth the effort: after twenty minutes of climbing, a small platform allows you to observe one of the most beautiful views of the capital, with Tower 101 in all its splendour in the foreground. The ideal is to go there just before nightfall, to admire the sunset over Taipei which lights up. It takes less than two hours to get there and back from the metro station.

Most tourists stop at this first stage, but the hiking trail continues for several kilometres and splits into several branches that penetrate the surrounding forests. A single day is not enough to go around them, so visitors in a hurry will have to make do with just one of these routes. Our favourite starts just after the first viewpoint: just a little further up is a small open-air gym, and continuing to the right of it, a path goes down into the mountain and allows you to visit several temples little known to tourists.