If you only have time to see a single sight in Lanzhou proper, the Gansu Provincial Museum is a fine choice. Recently reopened after major renovations that conceal its Russian-designed origins, the museum hosts a collection as impressive for its quality as for its diversity. Among the items you'll find are samples of neolithic painted pottery from the 8,000-year-old Dadiwan culture. You'll also see evidence of Silk Road cultural diffusion (or maybe an as-of-yet undocumented Chinese trade missions to the Roman Empire?) in the form of a silver plate depicting Bacchus, the Roman god of wine, unearthed about 120 kilometers away from here. Add bronze vessels, replica woolly mammoth fossils, live pandas, monkeys, cranes and the museum's piece-de-resistance: a finely-crafted bronze statue of a horse launching itself into a canter from the back of a flying swallow (now a popular northwestern Chinese symbol) and you get a mind-boggling mélange as memorable as it is enlightening.