The ancient city of Huili, a thousand-year-old city that few people know
Starting from the center of Panzhihua, the road to Huili is not particularly easy to drive. The road is relatively wide at the beginning, but after entering the mountain road, the road condition becomes worse. The mountain road is very narrow and there are many detours, so don't blindly pursue speed when driving, because many detours are turning backs, and if you don't pay attention, a car rushes from the opposite side, so try to be as steady as possible.
It is about 95 kilometers from Panzhihua to Huili, and it takes nearly two and a half hours to drive, which is actually shorter than going from Xichang.
Because the road is all over the mountains, there are not many people on the way. You can pass through some market towns occasionally, but you can clearly feel that they are also people who have just escaped poverty. To be honest, living in such mountains is difficult. Leisurely, but presumably not rich.

Before approaching the ancient city of Huili, the road has widened a lot, but it can be clearly felt that the pomegranate here will be a very important economic income for the local area, because many of them are written with the words "delivering express delivery", or repairing large trucks. . For Huili, which is famous for its abundance of pomegranates, there must be a lot of traffic when the pomegranates are produced every year.

The ancient city of Huili was named after "Chuanyuan merged Hui and Zhengping praised Li". This is a thousand-year-old ancient city with a long history. It still retains a complete urban pattern built in the Ming Dynasty and 250,000 square meters of Ming, Qing, and Republic of China buildings; The change of dynasties in the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties has witnessed the changes of Nanzhao, Dali and the central government.
It is not allowed to drive in the ancient city, so the car can only be parked in the parking lot outside the ancient city. Then walk to the ancient city.

The ancient city is still relatively well preserved. The whole city is about 1,770 meters long from north to south and 920 meters wide from east to west. The inner city and outer city are divided into several regular neighborhoods with a rigorous and orderly layout.
Stepping into the ancient city, you will find that the people living in the ancient city still maintain their own rhythm of life. Although the times have improved a lot, the people here are still used to lazily enjoying the bright sunshine here.

The main street in the inner city takes the Bell and Drum Tower as the center and extends to the four city gates in a cross shape, becoming the four main streets of East Street, South Street, West Street, and North Street. A checkerboard pattern of four streets and three gates (i.e. Dongguan, Xiguan, Beiguan) twenty-three lanes with the axis as the center.
Many houses facing the street in the ancient city have been converted into shops, but you will find that this place is different from many shops in the ancient city. They are not noisy, but just quietly doing their own business, and the street-facing shops are paved for activities. There are hollow carved wooden windows on the wooden building; green tile roofs, hanging herbs and moss on the corrugated tiles, and the simple and simple tones also constitute the outline of the street scene with uneven heights and ups and downs.
The Gongji Gate located at the north gate of the city is considered a well-preserved ancient building in the local area. It is commonly known as the Drum Tower in Huili. It is a wooden structure with double eaves and hard mountains. The function of the Drum Tower is to beat the drum to set the watch, and cooperate with the clock tower to strike the clock to tell the time. In the era when there were no clocks and watches, it played a very important role in the daily work of the people in the city.
It doesn't take long to walk around the ancient city, half a day is enough, but when you come here, you will really find the strong sense of age in a silent ancient city.

Tips:
1. Transportation: There are shuttle buses from Xichang or Panzhihua, and they are all rolling, with many shifts. If you drive by yourself, Xichang is far away in the past, but there are more expressways. It is close to Panzhihua, but most of them are mountain roads.
2. Accommodation: There are no luxury hotels in the ancient city of Huili. There is a Yingzhouyuan Hotel outside the city, which is relatively close to the ancient city. The Sihe Chengpin B&B in the city is a bit better, and there are other B&Bs, but they are relatively small , the overall price is not particularly expensive
3. Food: The most famous local food should be shredded chicken, bait cubes, and crispy buns. You can try it
4. Tickets: Free