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Confucius' Tomb
Heart of Confucius' Forest
In the cross hairs
Yanmiao
I will be traveling for 2 months in china : yangshuo, yunnan, xian, pinyao,beijing, shanghai, putuoshan, hangzhou, suzhou and...
2 of teh following three : datong or chengde or qufu.
If you have been to all three and could choose only two, which ones would they be? please help!!! thank you
Hi, I've been to all places that you mentioned. If you go to Datong, you can only see the Sleeping Buddha and Nine Dragon Wall, which you can find them in Beijing. And for Qufu, it's worth to go! You can see the place of the greatest 'Guru' in this world, The Confucians. Don't forget to visit the local restaurant to try Qufu's special food. If you still have time, climb the Tai Shan! The scene is wonderful up there...
Why don't you go to all three places? Chengde is only 2-3 hours from Beijing. Datong 14 hours by train from Beijing.
But if you don't have enough time, I choose Chengde and Qufu.
Have a nice trip to China... :)
I spent two months in China last fall. One of the big issues with China is the size...with an itinerary like that you'd better be flying. You will spend vast amounts of time on the train otherwise. Also, Yunnan isn't a stop. It's a lot of stops. Lijiang, Tiger Leaping Gorge, down to Jinghong...some folks like Dali, plus Kunming and that's only the big name stuff. I'm a pretty fast-paced traveller and I'm not sure I'd attempt all those places listed without a few flights. Just a thought.
I'd cut Putuoshan.
Datong is only 6 hours from Pingyao by bus. Somebody forgot to mention that Datong has large Buddhist statues carved into caves and a temple built into the side of a cliff. You won't find that in Beijing!
Chengde is an easy 2 day trip from Beijing. Plan on 4 days in Beijing plus the Chengde excursion then continue by train to Datong.
Qufu is going to be tricky. It's a southeast trip from Beijing so you might want to consider taking the flight from Xi'an to Jinan (Shandong) and then continuing to Qufu from there.
After Qufu you can go south through Xuzhou on to Shanghai and then visit Suzhou, Tongli and Hangzhou after a couple days in the big city.
Skip Putuoshan and take the flight from Hangzhou to Kunming and do your Yunnan thing. It's possible to do Stone Forest, Dali, and Lijiang in 8 days if you follow the 3-2-3 schedule. (3 days Kunming, 2 days Dali, 3 days Lijiang)
Save Yangshuo for last and then I don't know where you plan to go home from. It's easy to hop on a cheap flight from Guilin to Hong Kong.
If you must return to Beijing then you'll need a different route: Fly to Kunming from Xi'an and then do Yangshuo followed by Shanghai area and then up to Qufu and back to Beijing.
In Qufu everything rotates around the temple and residence of the family of Confucius. Until the 1950s the 70th generation of decendants of the Kong-Family lived in the palace in Qufu. Then they moved to Taiwan.
The Palace an the temple are still there and can be visited like a museum.
This pyramid-shaped tomb is located a few kilometres to the east of Qufu. It is the burial place of Shao Hao, one of the five legendary emperors supposed to have ruled China around 4000 years ago. This tomb was built in the Song Dynasty (960-1279) with stone blocks in a pyramid shape resembling the Egyptian pyramids. It measures 25m in width and is 6m high with a small pavilion on top.
To get here, take bus No.2 and ask to be dropped off at "Shao Hao". Then cross over the main road and walk northwards to a lake with two enormous bixi with their stone tablets. Then proceed through the gate that enters into the walled compound and keep walking north past some pavilions. The tomb is behind these. It's a good 10 minute or so walk from the main road.
The descendants of Confucius lived in the Kong family mansion located to the east of the temple. They were in charge of tending to the temple and cemetery. In particular, they were in charge of conducting elaborate religious ceremonies on occasions such as plantings, harvests, honouring the dead, and birthdays. The Kong family was in control of the largest private rural estate in China. The first mansion was built in 1038 during the Song dynasty and was originally connected directly to the temple. During a rebuilding in 1377 directed by the first Ming dynasty Emperor, it was moved a short distance away from the temple. In 1503, it was expanded into three rows of buildings with 560 rooms and - like the Confucius Temple - 9 courtyards. The mansion underwent a complete renovation in 1838 only to perish in a fire 47 years later in 1887. It was rebuilt two years later; the cost of both 19th century renovations was covered by the Emperor. Today, the mansion comprises 152 buildings with 480 rooms, which cover an area of 12,470 square metres. The family mansion was inhabited by descendants of Confucius until 1937, when Confucius' descendant in the 76th and 77th generations fled to Chongqing during the Second Sino-Japanese War and later during the Chinese Civil War to Taiwan, where the head of the family still resides.
Admission: Included in the price of the Confucius Temple ticket.
This forest is actually a cemetery and a pretty big one at that. It lies a few kilometres to the north of Qufu and is where the great sage, Confucius, is buried along with over 100,000 of his descendants in a walled compound that encloses an area of 3.6 square kilometres. The perimeter wall stretches for a length of 7.5km. Some 3,600 tombstones, which date back to the Han dynasty (202 BC - 220 AD), can be found amongst thousands of trees, which can be seen by walking through the undergrowth on narrow paths. The oldest graves date back to the Zhou Dynasty, the most recent of which belong to descendants in the 76th and 78th generation.
Admission: Included in the price of the Confucius Temple ticket.
Qufu is a town of around 60,000 inhabitants that is located about 130km (80 miles) south of the Shandong provincial capital of Jinan. It is the legendary birthplace of Confucius (551 - 479 BC) - the great sage and philosopher, whose teachings and philosophy have deeply influenced Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese and Vietnamese thought and life. Qufu served as the capital of the State of Lu during the Spring and Autumn Period (8th-5th century BC). The major cultural sites in the town are all associated with Confucius. Three sites, the huge Temple of Confucius, the Cemetery of Confucius, and the Kong Family Mansion, have been listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites since 1994.
I came here from Nanjing for a couple of nights and it's easy enough to spend a whole day exploring the sites without rushing.
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