What is there to do in Shanxi?
Two years ago, my stereotype of Shanxi was the same as that of most people: soil, poor, coal boss.
Until the year before last, I saw a tweet "China's No. 1 Wooden Pagoda, how much do you know?" ". The full text only talks about one building - Yingxian Wooden Pagoda.
This is the tallest wooden tower in the world, built entirely of wood without using a single nail. What is even more unbelievable is that it has withstood the threat of war, earthquake devastation and man-made destruction for nearly a thousand years, and it still stands today. It even applied for the Guinness Book of World Records as "the tallest wooden tower in the world", and is known as the world's three largest towers together with the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Eiffel Tower.
It is in a small county in Shanxi.
Another day, the official account tweeted an article "China's first castle in the sky, how was it built?" ". On a cliff, there is a Hanging Temple, which only relies on a few pillars to support the entire weight, and it lasts for more than a thousand years.
And coincidentally, the Hanging Temple is also in Shanxi, not far from the Ying County Wooden Pagoda.
After that, I searched for some information casually, and guess what surprises there are?
Can you imagine that there are still Tang Dynasty buildings in the land of China in the 21st century!
Foguang Temple was built in the 11th year of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang Dynasty (857). It has been a thousand years, the Buddhist Temple of the Tang Dynasty! Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin made in-depth investigations back then and called it "China's No. 1 National Treasure".
And Shanxi has far more than these three items.
In fact, 70% of the wooden buildings before the Yuan Dynasty in China were in Shanxi!
9.6 million square kilometers of mountains, rivers and soil, 5,000 years of civilization. I was often sad that I couldn't dream back to the past and see the radiant atmosphere of the Tang Dynasty. Now it seems that I was so naive and ignorant at that time.
The grottoes of the Northern Dynasties, the temples of the Tang Dynasty, the halls of the Song Dynasty, and the theater buildings of the Yuan Dynasty... These miraculous heritages have traveled through thousands of years, and they are in Shanxi, just waiting for an appointment.
Ready to go! Shanxi, see you soon~
Shanxi travel itinerary
I wanted to play Shanxi completely according to the above route, but finally found that it was unrealistic to finish the tour in two or three weeks. After struggling for several rounds, I finally decided on the Baojin North Line and the Jinzhong Line.
【Shanxi North Line】
North of Taiyuan, south of Datong, including Wutai County, Hunyuan County, Ying County and Datong. Starting from Taiyuan, stay at Wutai Mountain for two to three days, and visit Wutai Mountain Scenic Area, Foguang Temple, Nanchan Temple and other nearby ancient buildings. Then go north to Datong, stay for about five days, visit Yungang Grottoes, Jinhua Palace, Shanhua Temple, Huayan Temple, Datong Ancient City, Yingxian Wooden Pagoda, Xuankong Temple, Mount Heng, etc. If you have enough time, you can also stay in Daixian County, Shuozhou for three or four days, and visit Shuozhou Ancient City, Guangwu Ancient City, Daixian Ancient City and Yanmen Pass. This route concentrates a large number of elite ancient buildings, and it is the route I most want to take.
【Jinzhong Line】
Between Taiyuan and Lingshi, there are Jin Temple, Shanxi Museum and most of the residences of Shanxi merchants, and the transportation is the most convenient. You can stay in Taiyuan for three to four days to see Jin Temple and museums, etc., as the entrance to understand Shanxi. Then use Pingyao as a stopover and spend three to five days visiting the Shanxi Merchants Compound. If you have enough time, start from here to the surrounding area of Qikou Ancient Town to see the Yellow River Ferry and the ancient town.
Incomplete statistics of tourist attractions in Shanxi
Day1: Yuntai Mountain - Taiyuan
Today's itinerary is mainly transition. From Henan to Taiyuan, there are frequent trains, every one hour or so, arriving in 2.5 hours. Arrive at the B&B on Yingze Street in the evening. The area around Yingze Street is the downtown area of Taiyuan. Except for the provincial museum, the main scenic spots in the city are all nearby, so the accommodation is here, and you can travel in the city on foot.
Taiyuan feels that the pace of life is slower than that of Zhengzhou. There are fewer homestay options than Luoyang and Zhengzhou, but at the same price, the rooms here are more spacious and tidy, and the price/performance ratio is excellent.
Day2: Taiyuan: Yingze Park - Chongshan Temple - Confucian Temple - Wenying Park - Chunyang Palace
After breakfast and lunch, stroll slowly to Yingze Park. The park has a large area, the lawn is well maintained, and there are many old trees. Many citizens play cards and chess in the gazebo, which has a kind of leisure atmosphere only in the old city. The Shanxi Merchants Museum is in the park. I didn't expect the gate to be locked. Then I remembered that today is Monday and the museum is closed. If you are careless, you won’t be able to go to the Provincial Expo in the afternoon. Change it to a day trip to the old city.
2 kilometers away is the Ming Dynasty ancient temple - Chongshan Temple.
The scenic spot is easy to find. The temple area and the outer wall of the Confucian Temple next to it are painted in Chinese red, beautiful~
The temple was built in the early Sui and Tang Dynasties, and there is still a Tang stele in the Chongshan Temple. But for thousands of years, the original buildings have all turned into dust. The current main hall, the Great Compassion Hall, was built in the early Ming Dynasty, and most of the other Buddhist halls were rebuilt after the Qing Dynasty.
The Great Compassion Hall is facing the mountain gate, and the eaves and walls are covered with thick dust, dusty, which shows its age. It is being repaired recently, with scaffolding around it. Most ancient Chinese buildings are made of wood, which is easily damaged by fire and insects. The 400-year-old temple really needs more maintenance, but it is a pity that it cannot be seen inside the temple.
The 400-year-old ancient capital has been dusted to this point. Will the Foguang Temple be in a worse state in the 1000-year period? I'm a little worried~
As soon as I entered the door, I heard humming and singing. It turned out that the Dharma meeting was being held in the right hall. In the inner courtyard of the hall, several presiding monks sang sutras in the sutra hall, and the loud and clear chanting sound surrounds them endlessly. A group of good men and believers bowed and chanted in the courtyard in a solemn manner.
puja
I thought Chongshan Temple was just a cultural relic attraction, but I didn't expect it to be a working Buddhist temple. The ancient temples and Buddhist scriptures hundreds of years ago are still handed down and in the hands of today's people. This scene of continuous inheritance may be the most beautiful appearance of Chinese civilization.
Fragrant flowers match ancient temples. There is also a garden in the garden. In May, the rose season is in full bloom. A tree with flowers leaning against the Buddhist hall is so beautiful.
Next to Chongshan Temple is the Confucian Temple, which is now the Shanxi Provincial Folk Museum. It has always been a place to sacrifice to Confucius, but it was moved here because of the damage caused by the flood of the Yellow River. Now that the sacrificial function is no longer there, it is a good new life to become a folk custom museum.
Just pat outside the door
A few hundred meters away from here is Wenying Park built during the Republic of China.
Taiyuan City is not at all like the heavily polluted industrial city in the impression, there are really many green spaces in the city.
Wenying Park is more than a hundred years old, and there are many relics of the Republic of China in it.
Wanzi Building & the former site of Provincial No. 1 Middle School & others
Shanxi Hotel is just outside the park. It is a high-end restaurant that has been in business since Yan Xishan's time, and it is still in business now, specializing in Jin dishes. The lunch and dinner buffet set meal is only 135 yuan. I didn’t eat alone, I cried~)
Chunyang Palace (Shanxi Art Museum) is also nearby.
closed
Compared with the few cultural protection units, these cultural relics are really lively and lovely. It should be a kind of two-way luck to be able to continue to live in people's daily life~
It's evening, I finished this bowl of sliced noodles to end today~
Day3: Jinci Temple - Riding along the Fen River
Today we will visit Jinci Temple.
Jinci Temple is located in the southwest suburb of Taiyuan City, and the one-way bus takes nearly two hours. The Mengshan Giant Buddha Site, Longshan Grottoes and Ming Taiyuan City are not far away, so you can visit them together by driving or chartering a car. (However, I'm alone... let's give up...)
Jinci is the earliest surviving royal sacrificial garden in China. The scenic spot is divided into two areas: Jinci Park and Jinci Museum. Pass through Jinci Park to reach Jinci Museum. In the park, birds are singing and flowers are fragrant, and the scenery of mountains and lakes is quite elegant. The garden design coincides with many allusions, and no tickets are charged. It’s good to come here for a picnic and daze when you have time.
Finally standing at the gate of Jinci Museum!
The gate of Jinci Museum. Web map, intrusion and deletion
The Jinci Museum is not an ordinary single exhibition hall, but a huge ancient building complex. The building area of the museum area alone exceeds 20,000 square meters, most of which are ancient buildings spanning Song, Jin, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, and the relics of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism coexist.
The entire museum area is backed by Xuanweng Mountain and connected to Jinshui in front. It was first built in the Zhou Dynasty to worship Tang Shuyu, the ancestor of Jin Dynasty, and his mother Yi Jiang. After two thousand years of continuous destruction, it has been continuously expanded and renovated to form today's pattern.
Floor plan of Jinci Temple. Internet map, intrusion and deletion.
Although the museum area is large, the layout is clear. The core area is left-right symmetrical with the central line of the main hall Notre Dame Hall as the axis. The Temple of Our Lady is located at the end of the central axis.
Visit along the line in turn, the first thing that catches the eye is the water mirror platform. This is a stage of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The first thing you see when you enter the door is the back of the stage. It is said that it was the original stage that became when Monkey King fought Erlang Shen in the 86 version of "Journey to the West". The two windows look like two big eyes, so cute~
Just say cute or not!
Going around to the back, you can see the style of the stage, facing the audience on three sides. Jin people like to listen to operas, and Aiwu and Wu think that gods also like to listen to operas, so opera stages can be seen all over Shanxi.
Jin Rentai. On the four corners are four iron men.
In front of the water mirror platform is the Jinren platform. The so-called golden men refer to the four iron men made of iron, which are used to suppress water and keep the wind and rain in order. Three of them are original works of the Song Dynasty.
Behind the stage, between the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower are Duyuefang in the Ming Dynasty and the Xiandian Hall in the Jin Dynasty.
Facing Yuefang, behind it is the Hall of Dedication. The Duiyuefang is in the front, and the Xiandian is in the back, and the two are closely connected. During the Wanli period, Gao Yingyuan, a local calligrapher, donated to build Duyue Fang, and personally wrote the Duyue plaque. "Duiyue" means to repay and promote the merits of the ancestors.
The Dedicated Hall is shaped like a gazebo, with a majestic architectural style. It was a place for offering sacrifices in ancient times. It has been more than 800 years so far, and it is known as one of the three treasures of Jinci Temple.
Further on, there are the soul buildings of the entire Jinci Temple - Yuzhao Feiliang and the Hall of the Virgin.
Beside the steps, behind a pair of green and powerful old trees, there is a bridge made of white marble and a cross-overpass style.
It is the Uonuma Flying Beam that Liang Sicheng said "occasionally seen in ancient paintings, but this is the only real thing". It was built in the Northern Song Dynasty for nearly a thousand years. There is a fish marsh spring under the bridge, and the flowing water is gurgling and crystal clear. The bridge body is stable and still passable. Walking slowly on the bridge, looking around, under the blue sky and white clouds, the contiguous ancient temples and ancient trees complement each other.
On both sides of the main axis, an octagonal pavilion extends out, one is the spring of goodness and the other is the spring of embarrassment. The so-called difficult aging is because the springs have not dried up for thousands of years. However, due to the decline of the ground water level due to industrial development, the spring has stopped flowing, and the water in the well is now pretending to be tap water.
There is spring water in the octagonal pavilion
The place where Yumao Feiliang connects is the main hall of the Jinci Temple - the Hall of the Holy Mother. This is a large building with a width of seven rooms. There are eight huge columns on the outer corridor and eight coiled dragons on the upper plate, which is imposing. The main hall was built in the Tiansheng period of the Northern Song Dynasty, nearly a thousand years ago. The inside of the hall has been protected and can only be visited in front of the corridor. The statue of the Virgin is enshrined in the hall. From the appearance of the headgear and clothing, it is particularly luxurious, gentle and beautiful, full of feminine charm. On both sides of the Virgin, there are more than forty painted maids and eunuchs from the Song Dynasty. The figure is soft and beautiful, and the expression is lifelike.
When Mei Lanfang came to Jinci Temple to visit, he stood silently for several hours in front of a statue of a dancing girl with red hair bun. The face of the dancer facing the audience is full of smiles, while the half of her face facing away from the audience is full of sadness. Fate can't help but hurt people, which deeply resonated with her colleague Mei Lanfang.
It's the one with red on the middle head. It's not easy to find in the picture, but I really tried my best
In front of the Miaoyi Hall, the auxiliary hall on the right side of the Notre Dame Hall, stands a towering cypress tree, 3,200 years ago! I'm afraid it's not going to be fine~
A list of ancient trees in the garden. The one with the first split is Zhou Bai.
The Holy Mother worships the ancestors of the Jin Temple. In fact, when the temple was built in the Zhou Dynasty, the Jin Temple mainly worshiped Tang Shuyu, and it was not until the Tang Dynasty that it was changed to the Holy Mother. The current Tang Shuyu Temple is located on the west side of the Notre Dame Hall. It was built in the Yuan Dynasty and expanded during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty. There are also Taoist buildings Sanqing Temple and Dongyue Temple next to it.
The Jinshui meander outside the hall returns to the West Lake on the south side. Next to it is the Fengguo Temple and the Relic Tower built in the Qing Dynasty.
There are also many ancient buildings such as Wang's Ancestral Hall, Jinxi Academy, Jellyfish Building, etc. You can go shopping all the time, but your legs are sore~
It was evening when we returned to the urban area, and the sunset in the north was late, so we simply rode a bicycle to watch the sunset by the Fen River. The scenery of the Fen River is pleasant, refreshing and comfortable. The bicycle lanes and pedestrian walkways on the shore are separated, wide and orderly, and it is perfect for walking in the evening.
Fen River Evening
End the day with a good meal, as usual. This pancake is so delicious! Shanxi's pasta is really amazing!
Day4: Shanxi Museum - Wutai County
Leave it to Shanxi Museum in the morning. This trip is full of expectations for Shanxi, and naturally I am also looking forward to the Provincial Expo.
The appearance of the museum looks larger than that of the Henan Museum, and the interior space is also spacious.
However, the decoration is relatively old, and there are no escalators and smart demonstration equipment. It is a bit like a ten-year museum.
The museum has a total of 7 historical and cultural museums, displaying cultural relics from prehistoric to Ming and Qing Dynasties in Shanxi.
The state of Jin was the first glorious period in Shanxi. The burial jade unearthed from the tomb of Mrs. Mu Houci in Quwo Jin on display in the museum is the highest-grade jade in the Western Zhou Dynasty that has been discovered.
The second wife buried jade. It may not be obvious from this photo, but this set of jade is 1.7 meters +. The height of the owner is comparable to that of modern models.
Fine bronzes and porcelain. However, after being shocked by the exhibits of the Henan Museum, it is inevitable to look at other things.
cute things come again
cute little dancing people
Shanxi is one of the core areas where the integration of nationalities and the prosperity of Buddhist art in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. Because of the prosperity of Buddhism, many world-famous grottoes, giant temples, and famous temples were born in Shanxi, and miraculously preserved Buddhist buildings in the middle ages such as Tang, Song, Liao, and Jin. The world knows that it is really God's favor~
These ancient buildings are the reason why many people travel to Shanxi. The museum has set up a special exhibition hall with the theme of civil engineering. However, only some representative architectural models are displayed in the exhibition hall, so take a stroll around as a preview of knowledge before exploring the real body.
The operas of the Yuan Dynasty are also the proud works of Shanxi. Yuanqu is an artistic genre comparable to Tang poetry and Song Ci. There are four masters of Yuanqu, three of which are from Shanxi. The existing ancient theaters in China, from the Yuan Dynasty and before, are basically located in Shanxi. Shanxi people have a deep love for opera, which has continued to the present. Many areas in Shanxi still have theaters in every village, and even temples still rely on singing operas to fulfill their vows.
Ancient opera scene
The level of craftsmanship of shadow puppetry is very high, and I personally feel that it is more beautiful than what I saw in the Shaanxi Pavilion.
Shanxi Merchants Exhibition Area. It can be seen that the Jinshang Road covers Europe and Asia, which is a bit like today's Chinese traffic map.
After visiting the museum, people are looking forward to the ancient temples, ancient pagodas, ancient buildings and folk houses scattered all over Shanxi. How can the model look better than the real body? Some can't wait to go on a pilgrimage.
After a quick lunch, I took a bus from Taiyuan to Wutai County. Visit Nanchan Temple and Foguang Temple tomorrow!
Spicy Double Pepper Mixed Noodles full of chilies. This spicy star was so spicy that he couldn't eat it in the north!
