Sign in with Facebook- Join for free
- Sign In
Sign in with Facebook
Helpfulness
This residence belonged to one of Pingyao's more influential banking families. There is a complex of rooms that give the visitor a good look at the architecture of the period.
Open 8am to 6:30pm
Y120 part of the Pingyao Museum flat fee.
Written Jul 5, 2007
Address: Upper Ximen Dajie
Helpfulness
The Town Bell Tower is lovely structure that dominates the Nan Dajie street in the central part of the old town. It’s open for tourist and at a humble height of 18.5m the visitor gets great views of the grey tiled town. Try to go early in the morning or late in the afternoon for good light.
It’s open from 9am to 5pm.
It's apart of the Y120 ticket for the Pingyao museums, the guard will punch your ticket.
Updated Jul 5, 2007
Helpfulness
The Rishengchang Financial House is the first bank in China, if not the world. It started as a small dye shop until the owner introduced a system of checks and deposits for its other branches. Eventually, other businesses, individuals, and even the government of China used the bank and its 57 branches around China. The Japanese invasion of China in the 1930’s and the advent of Western banking systems ended Pingyao’s prosperity and isolated it from the modernization other towns received leaving the ancient town untouched from the ugliness that plagues the majority of China’s ancient cities turned modern overnight.
The museum has over 100 rooms including living quarters, kitchen, offices, stable house, gardens etc. These people were wealthy.
Open 8am to 7pm
This museum is part of the Y120 flat fee charged for most of the Pingyao musuems.
Updated Jul 5, 2007
Address: 40 Xi Dajie
Helpfulness
Perhaps the most interesting part of the town is the city walls. Originally built in the Zhou dynasty (827-728 BC wow that’s old!), they have been clad in brick with beautiful watch towers and gates during the Ming dynasty (1368 – 1644 AD). Walking along the 6 kms of wall, entirely intact, is one of the highlights of the Pingyao. They stand about 60 feet tall and are about 15 feet wide, perfectly paved in brick. The watch towers are in excellent condition and some can be climbed affording fantastic views of the one or two story building town. Apparently, even the Chinese film industry likes Pingyao because we had to wait for 30 minutes as they filmed a WWII war movie at one of the city gates we needed to go through. Pingyao is not known abroad like the Forbidden City or Great Wall, but it deserves.
You need a ticket to go up on the walls that is apart of the Pingyao museum ticket good for all the museums in Pingyao. If you go up the wall on the east gate of the city there is no one there to check you ticket. The west side has a more famous gate and bell tower so they check here.
Y120 is the flat fee for the museums
Updated Jul 5, 2007
Changyifeng Post Guest House: A funny experience!!
Jessy_OLE Says: It was like to sleep ..."in the past" !!!!I really enjoyed it!!! It is representatives of classical architecture in Ming and Qing dynasty in the old city. Take a look of the web page...you will love it!!Pd.- In the guesthouse they do not speak very well English...take care...
Yamen Hostel: Hostel with a courtyard
susanpingu Says: Nice courtyard. Friendly people. The reception area has signs giving directions to the Qiao family mansion. If you can't get onward train tickets (esp. sleeper train), Yamen can help. But in our case, the train was full, so they arranged for us to take the long distance...
Helpfulness
It's not hard to get to Pinyao, but leaving can be a problem. Aparently, there is a some difficulty in getting train tickets out of Pingyao because the ticket mongers have sewn up the market on tickets and one cannot buy them in the Pingyao train office. You can take a bus, to Xi'an, for instance but they are expensive and you obviously can't take a hard or soft sleeper. It's so nice to sleep on an overnight train. So you have to go through your guesthouse who will also charge a commision over the ticket mongers commision. They have to call ahead and buy the ticket. They will give you a receipt for the ticket, but the conductor on the train might not like this and say you don't have a ticket. The system is suppose to work but it has holes. You have to trust that you will have a bed without having the actual ticket in hand. Oh well, it's apart of the adventure. We did fine with it after some gesturing and shoulder shrugging.
Written Jul 3, 2007
Located halfway between Beijing and Xi'an, Pingyao makes for an excellent stop over to visit a charming Chinese town plucked straight out of the 19th century. With the racing development that is...
Build your own Pingyao page
Comments