Visit the ancient city of Lingling in Yongzhou to experience the charm of ancient elegance and modern style! Every spot is a scene!
📃 I learned about Lingling ancient city through Liu Zongyuan's 'Record of the Little Stone Pool' and Xu Xiake's Xiake Crossing. ✔️ It's a less popular tourist destination, but it has its own flavor on rainy and sunny days. If you have enough time, 💁 the night view is quite worth recommending, with the old streets still retaining the bluestone paths, 👀 but the nightlife is very lively, and the commercialization is a bit serious. However, it's nice to take a walk and enjoy some snacks‼️
📍Attraction address: No. 158 Pingyang South Road, Lingling District, Yongzhou City, Hunan Province
🎟️Ticket information:
Open all day, looks better at night than during the day.
Tickets: Free
🚗Transportation to the attraction:
👉To go to Lingling ancient city from the downtown area of Yongzhou, you can take a bus from the South or West Bus Station in the city.
👉There is a direct bus route 303 from Yongzhou Railway Station to Lingling ancient city, which takes about an hour to reach.
🅿️Parking: You can park by the roadside if you are driving, and there is a parking lot opposite the ancient city as well.
👍Must-visit spots:
✅Lingling ancient city, also known as Yongzhou ancient city, ✔️has a history of more than 2,000 years. It is a city with profound cultural heritage, one of the birthplaces of Chinese landscape poetry, and one of the four famous historical and cultural cities in Hunan📒
✔️Liu Zongyuan, Huaisu, Ouyang Xiu, Lu You, Su Dongpo, Huang Tingjian, Mi Dai, Wen Tianxiang, Zhu Xi, Xu Xiake, and many other literati have checked in here‼️
✅The main areas within Lingling ancient city include Liu Zongyuan cultural tour, Yongzhou cultural display, and a folk customs market. ✔️The main attractions include Liu Zongyuan Street, Liu Zongyuan Temple, Yu Creek, etc. 💁Liu Zongyuan wrote a series of articles about Yongzhou after being demoted here, especially 'The Story of the Snake Catcher' and 'Record of the Little Stone Pool' which were in the textbooks when we were kids➿
📶The ancient city is now mostly made up of imitation ancient streets and various restaurants and small commodity shops, ✔️but the old street still retains some simple and original architecture.
↗️Lingling originally had seven city gates: East, South, West, North, Taiping, Xiaoxiang, and Yong'an. ⏬You can still find traces of them in the ancient city, and the patterns of the Zhenyong, Wangjiang, Desheng, and Wujian gates are still clear📃
👍Most recommended:
Liu Zongyuan Temple is not large, 👉Ticket: 20 yuan, purchase online in advance. It provides a detailed introduction to Liu Zongyuan's life and works, ✔️covering over 2,000 square meters, with a typical brick and wood structure, a typical three-entry courtyard, with statues of Liu Zongyuan in the main hall and hall for worship. 📶The front hall is a stage, with double-eaved Xieshan roofs, flying eaves and corners, and decorations such as colorful phoenixes, kirins, and Ao fish on the corners of the ridges. The main ridge is adorned with a clay dragon kissing an Ao fish, and the middle of the ridge has a porcelain gourd. It is a national key cultural relics protection unit👀
Liu Zongyuan Street is a bluestone street, ✅with many shops on both sides being ancient houses with flying eaves and slanted wooden doors and windows. 📒The street is not very long, about 600 meters, named after Liu Zongyuan who lived here, consisting of a two-meter-wide bluestone path and two one-meter-wide cobblestone paths◀️
The light and shadow effects of the ancient city at night are very beautiful. The ancient city is well-regulated, with serious commercialization, ⭕️similar to most ancient cities and streets in the country, with numerous shops and distinctive inns. 💫But at night, the ancient city is especially lively, with enchanting night scenes. You can take a walk along the ancient city walls to enjoy the night view of the ancient city; or sit in a bar or teahouse in the ancient city, tasting local snacks and teas📜
There are also many performances, ⏬with more people in the evening, as well as many snacks and specialty foods, and various folk performances such as dragon dancing, lion dancing, and opera. 👉These performances not only have a strong local flavor but also allow you to gain a deeper understanding of the local folk culture🅾
💗Other tips:
👉The entire ancient city is actually an imitation ancient commercial street, ◀️except for Liu Zongyuan Temple, everything else is very very very ordinary, more suitable for checking in, ⭕️there are many shops renting clothes for photo shoots.
💁The ancient city is now developing tourism and cultural projects, ✅with many modern elements, and there are many entertainment projects for children, suitable for visiting at night☑️