Humanities & Landscape
Taohuayuan Scenic Area
Taohuayuan Scenic Area
File photo/Changsha Evening News
Visitors to Taohuayuan Scenic Area are entranced by the natural beauty of many revitalized scenic locations. The scenic area has a dense growth of peach trees and evergreen trees with water in the front and some hills in the distance. When the peach trees are in full blossom, the area looks like a pastoral painting dotted with red and pink blooms.
Taohuayuan Scenic Area is composed of four scenic parts: Taoyuan Hill, Taohua Hill, Qinren Village, and Taoxian Range. Dotted in the area are many stone tablets inscribed with poems, precious cultural relics, and ancient buildings. In March when peach trees bloom, the place looks like a fairyland. Its idyllic scenery, temples and pavilions, poems and inscriptions, and historical legends have been praised by the people for thousands of years.
Visitors may also enjoy a large live-action drama named “Taohuayuan” in the area. The 70-minute show is staged to mimic life in the Chinese dreamland.
Opening hours: 8:30-18:00
Getting there: take a shuttle bus heading to Shaping Town [沙坪镇], Xi'an Town[西安镇], Cha'anpu Town [茶庵铺镇], and Lingjintan Town [凌津滩镇] at Changsha South Bus Station, also known as Qiaonan Bus Station and get off at Taohuayuan Scenic Area Tourist Center. It takes about one hour and a half to drive.
Service hotline: 400-985-6677
Liuye Lake and Changde Poem Wall are worth a visit in Changde.
Liuye Lake
Photo/official website of the Liuye Lake Tourist Resort
Those who have been to West Lake in Hangzhou often marvel at its size but few people know a vast body of water almost four times that size lies in Changde, Hunan province.
Covering 21.8 square kilometers, Liuye Lake, named after its shape that resembles a willow leaf, is the largest lake within a city's downtown area in China.
Nestled among the mountains, the lake glitters like a giant diamond when the sun shines.
Islets on the lake are covered with luxuriant plants. Seen from afar, they look like emeralds embedded on a giant hairpin some goddess might have dropped.
The surrounding mountains add to the charm of the lake. To its north is Baihe Mountain, a long-time habitat of white cranes.
From May to September each year, thousands of cranes and egrets feed, nest, mate and raise their young around the lake, making it a world of birds.
To the southwest of the Liuye Lake stands Huashan Mountain. Literally meaning a mountain of flowers, it is covered with a sea of wildflowers in a large range of bright colors.
The lake is also an excellent place for water sports.
Source: China Daily
Changde Poem Wall
Changde Poem Wall is a 3-kilometer-long anti-flood dyke alongside the Yuanjiang River, which is engraved with poems, calligraphy works and paintings. Thus, it is listed as the longest wall with engraved art in the Guinness Book of World Records.
There are artworks from many famous Chinese artists and outstanding figures such as Mao Zedong and Qi Baishi.
Chinese source: hunan.gov.cn