The sweltering heat in Beijing at the beginning of August makes people irritable. Finding a place to cool off and stay for a few days has become the expectation of this summer vacation. Pack your bags and head north in search of cool weather, tempting food and beauty.

Explain the basic situation before departure, a family of three, self-driving tram (about 350km high-speed battery life), time for 2 weeks, lazy people travel slowly, don't want to go sightseeing, but don't want to miss the delicious food and beautiful scenery.

Starting from Beijing, Beijing → Datong → Hohhot → Fengning, Hebei → Beijing, the whole journey is 2000km. This itinerary is due to the Ulanqab epidemic and temporarily replaced the Huanghuagou Grassland and Ulan Hada Volcano in Ulanqab with the Fengning Bashang Grassland. If it is not affected by the epidemic, Beijing → Datong → Hohhot → Ulanqab (Huanghuagou Grassland → Ulan Hada Volcano) → Beijing, this itinerary is better.

【Datong】

One morning in early August, I packed up and set off in a happy mood.

The whole journey from Beijing to Datong is high-speed, 370km, and the service area of ​​the whole journey can basically be charged. The normal driving time is about 4-5 hours, and it needs to be recharged once in the middle, about 1 hour.

Although Datong in early August still has the lingering prestige of summer, it is only under the sun during the day, under the shade of trees, and it is already cool at night. Before I came here, I only thought that Datong’s historical sites were famous, such as the famous Yungang Grottoes, Xuankong Temple, Huayan Temple, etc., but unexpectedly, Datong is also a veritable food capital. Mai also makes you want to stop. In terms of accommodation, there are various types of hotels

, You can choose the one closer to the ancient city. The overall price of the hotel is not expensive. The better five-star hotels, such as Howard Johnson (with a swimming pool, highly recommended), Yungang Jianguo, etc., cost about four to five hundred and one nights. The tram charging in downtown Datong is very convenient, there are many charging piles, you can search directly on the map.

Arrive in Datong in the afternoon, check into the hotel, take a rest, and go to the ancient city at night. You can drive into the ancient city, and the parking is quite convenient. To the west of the Drum Tower in the ancient city, Gulou West Street is a pedestrian street. It is a good experience to take the children for a walk at night and buy some gadgets. Or climb up the city wall and enjoy the night view of the ancient city. Other scenic spots in the ancient city, such as Huayan Temple, Nine Dragon Wall, Bell and Drum Tower, Daiwangfu, etc., can be specially arranged for a one-day tour.

When you come to Datong, you must go to [Yungang Grottoes]. Enter by car, the parking lot inside is very large, but if you go late, you may have to park in a farther parking lot. There are charging piles in the scenic area, but they are in the farthest parking lot. A parking fee of 10 yuan is charged for driving out of the scenic spot. I won’t say much about the introduction of Yungang Grottoes, there are many on the Internet, you can check it online by yourself. The grottoes are very shocking and worth seeing. If it is convenient, you can find an explanation. After all, many historical details of the stone carvings need to be explained in order to have a deeper understanding. At the end of the tour, there is a pedestrian street in the scenic area, where you can eat and shop. There is a post office at the end of the pedestrian street, which sells all kinds of postcards. You can buy a few, stamp the special seal of the scenic spot, and send it to yourself or a friend as a souvenir.

Not far from Yungang Grottoes is [Jinhua Palace National Mine Park], which can be visited in one day with Yungang Grottoes. The feature here is that you can wear miners' uniforms, take a mine cart, and go down to the underground mine to visit. The mine has been remodeled according to the needs of the visit, but you can still see the general situation of coal mining, which is quite unique.

[Ying County Wooden Pagoda] [Xuankong Temple] are all in the south of Datong City, and can be placed for 1 day. Yingxian Wooden Pagoda is located in Yingxian County, Shuozhou, Shanxi Province, southwest of Datong. A reminder, don’t choose Yingxian wooden tower parking lot for navigation. This parking lot is newly built, and it is more than 1 km away from the wooden tower, and a parking fee of 10 yuan is charged. The only thing that is more friendly to trams is that there are charging piles inside. You can directly navigate the Yingxian Wooden Pagoda. There are designated parking spaces on the side of the road beside the wooden tower, and parking is free. You can't climb the wooden pagoda, you can only look at it from the outside, or go into the first floor to see the Buddha statue inside. If you want to climb the pagoda, you can go to the Huayan Temple in the ancient city to climb the Huayan Pagoda. Just because someone said in a small video the night before that the wooden pagoda has stood for a thousand years without falling down. There is a local legend that one of the 24 pillars of the wooden pagoda is resting every hour. Because of this, my daughter stayed here for 2 hours to see if there was a pillar resting.

60km west of Ying County Wooden Pagoda is Mount Heng and Xuankong Temple in Hunyuan County. We only went to Xuankong Temple. The Xuankong Temple parking lot is divided into upper and lower parking lots. You can drive up to the upper parking lot as much as possible. The exit of the parking lot is the ticket office. Even if there is no parking space here, you can come back and park in the parking lot below. Tickets to enter the scenic spot are not expensive, 15 yuan, but to climb the Xuankong Temple, you need to buy another 100 yuan summit ticket. If you are bringing a child, if the child is not old, you should just take a look below. First, you have to queue up to go up to the temple, and second, it’s a bit scary to go up. The Hanging Temple is still quite an interesting scenic spot. You can tell the children why there are a little more magnificent Zhuang characters carved on the stone below. Is it really because the poet Li Bai wrote a little more when he was drunk and shaking his hands? And why should the Hanging Temple be built as Hanging? Is it really because you want to be closer to the sky, not to go up to the sky, not to go down to the ground, and not to eat fireworks in the world?

【Datong Cuisine】

As the ancient capital of the Northern Wei Dynasty and an important frontier town, Datong's cuisine combines the characteristics of the Central Plains and those outside the Great Wall, with a unique flavor.

I recommend a few restaurants, Long Juxiang, there are many branches in Datong City. They started out as siu mai. The oily pork and haggis are also very good. It is also necessary to try his small crispy meat, which is very cost-effective. Dongfang Sliced ​​Noodles specializes in Shanxi sliced ​​noodles, similar to Qingfeng Baozi Shop in Beijing. It is very popular and the price is affordable. I want a bowl of sliced ​​noodles, a few slices of stewed tofu, and a piece of roast pork, which is very satisfying. Fenglin Pavilion is the tallest one. It is said that Lafayette Cixi once ate at his home. In addition to eating oily meat, haggis powder, and sliced ​​noodles at his house, don’t forget to order a few skewers of lamb. The taste is much better than that of Beijing. In addition, the haggis from He Laoren’s haggis shop is also very good, it’s worth a try.

【Hohhot】

Hohhot is 230km northwest of Datong. It takes about 3 hours by car. The whole journey is high-speed. It starts from Datong with a full battery, and there is no need to recharge the power halfway. So it's good to play these two places together. If you start from Beijing, along the Beijing-Tibet Expressway, the whole journey is 500km, and there are basically charging piles in the service areas along the way, so there is no need to worry about mileage. There are also many charging stations in Hohhot, and tram charging is very convenient.

Stepping into Inner Mongolia and Hohhot for the first time is quite different from what I imagined before. The imagined Hohhot should be full of grassland style, and Mongolian elements should be everywhere. In fact, except that the various plaques are bilingual in Chinese and Mongolia, the others are no different from the cities in the Central Plains. It is also rare to see pedestrians wearing Mongolian costumes and hearing Mongolian speaking. Therefore, when traveling here, you don’t have to worry about not being able to understand the dialect, or not getting used to the food.

Hohhot is Mongolian, meaning "green city", so Hohhot is also referred to as "Qingcheng". There is a park in the center of Hohhot called Qingcheng Park. In ancient times, it was called Guihua City, Suiyuan City, and Guisui. In the Liberation War movies, Fu Zuoyi's hometown Suiyuan is here.

Hohhot is about 1,000 meters above sea level, the sky is bluer and the clouds are closer, as if it is within reach.

The scenic spots in Hohhot mainly include Dazhao Wuliang Temple, Baoerhan Pagoda, Suiyuan City General’s Office, Zhaojun’s Tomb, etc. Except for Dazhao Temple’s 35 yuan ticket, others are free of charge. As for these scenic spots, you can just visit here and go around, without taking too much time. On the contrary, Zhaojun's Tomb, although the scenic spot is small and there are not many attractive places, but the day we went, the sky was blue and blue, and the breeze was gentle. It was really refreshing to find a shady place in the scenic spot, or sit or lie down.

Two places are recommended here. One is the Tongshun Street Night Market next to Dazhao Wuliang Temple. All kinds of delicacies and snacks make people linger and forget to return. One is the Inner Mongolia Museum, which introduces the nature, history, and humanities of Inner Mongolia, and there are many real-life scenes. If you bring a child, he will be reluctant to leave, and he will not be able to see enough if he stays there for a day.

Tongshun Avenue and Saishang Old Street are two parallel pedestrian streets on the left side of Dazhao Square. Tongshun Street is a food street, which is very lively at night. Mutton kebabs, meat sausages, blood sausages, baked milk skin, must have fun. Don't eat at night, come here directly, and come back after eating and drinking. Saishang Old Street mainly sells some special handicrafts from Inner Mongolia, and there are also many gadgets that can be found in many tourist destinations, but it is obviously cooler than Tongshun Street.

【Hoh City Cuisine】

The food in Hohhot is obviously much better than the attractions here. Grilled lamb chops, hand-meat meat, sausage blood sausage, belly meat, delicious taste, let you realize the freedom of lamb. As for the restaurants, there are a few Internet celebrity restaurants, except that they are more expensive, there is nothing wrong with them. Erdun, Said, and Delehai are all good. There is also Deshunyuan, a time-honored siu mai shop, come and try a basket of siu mai. However, I personally feel that compared with the Shaomai in Datong, the Shaomai in Hushi is a little less delicate, but a little more rough. The appearance is not so detailed, but the mutton flavor is stronger. You can also experience the "morning tea" of the old Hohhot people here. You can order a pot of brick tea, order some siu mai, and chat with friends all morning, which is quite similar to the morning tea of ​​Cantonese people. I would also like to recommend a small dish, cold shallots, which is very refreshing, especially if you eat a lot of meat, take a few bites of this, it will be refreshing and relieve your greasy. In Hohhot, I order it almost every meal, but because it smells like green onions, not everyone is used to it.

[Hebei Fengning Bashang]

Because of the Ulanqab epidemic, the original trip to Huanghuagou and Ulan Hada Volcano had to be abandoned. Because the child wanted to see the prairie, he went 450km east of Hohhot to the Bashang Grassland in Fengning.

There are few charging piles in the high-speed service area around Hohhot, and because of the Ulanqab epidemic, we don’t want to park in the service area in Ulanqab, so from Hohhot to Fengningba, we can only go to Beijing and Tibet. -The Capital Ring Expressway basically has charging piles in the service area along the way, which is convenient for charging, and the detour is only 50km.

If you depart from Beijing, it will be more convenient to get to Fengning Dam. Starting from Beijing, there are generally two roads, one is Jingjia Road + Capital Ring Expressway, and the return trip is about 300km from Tangjiakou checkpoint in Huairou to Beijing. The road condition of Jingjia Road is good, and it is basically built according to the quasi-highway standard, that is, there are many slopes and curves, so try to avoid driving at night. In addition, this road has to pass through Fengning County, and there are many traffic lights. One is the whole journey of high speed, Beijing-Tibet/Jingli Expressway + Capital Ring Expressway, the whole journey is about 350km. The driving time is basically about 4 and a half hours. Because the altitude of Fengning Bashang Grassland is about 1500m, so if you travel by tram, you must consider a little bit when you take these two roads, that is, the outbound journey is basically uphill, and you should consider charging once according to the battery life of the vehicle. The high-speed service area can basically replenish power, which is more convenient. It is enough to plan in advance which service area to replenish power. The return journey is basically downhill, and under normal circumstances, there is no need to recharge the battery. Fengning Bashang Grassland Scenic Area is relatively well developed. The scenic spots are basically concentrated in Datan Town, and there are many charging stations. For example, there are charging piles in the parking lots of scenic spots such as China Ma Town and Fairy Tale Grassland, which are convenient for charging.

It is important to remind that you must bring thick clothes when you come here. In mid-August and with a little rain, it is already necessary to wear thin down jackets on the mountain.

For the specific play strategy on Fengning Bashang, you can see my other travel notes that specifically introduce Fengning Bashang Grassland.