Attractions · Kaifeng

Qingming Shanghe Garden stands on the west bank of Longting Lake in the northwest of the old city, next to Longting Park. It covers more than 600 mu, including 180 mu of water, with halls, towers, bridges and markets spread along the lake. Based on Zhang Zeduan's 'Along the River During the Qingming Festival', the park recreates the Bian River wharf, Rainbow Bridge, city gate towers, riverside taverns and shop signs from the painting one by one. The Rainbow Bridge is restored after the original as a pillarless woven-timber arch bridge, its weight carried by interlocking wooden poles — a timber arch regarded by bridge scholars as a structural form unique to China, which after the Song dynasty survived in physical form mainly in the covered bridges of Fujian and Zhejiang. Workshops for Bian embroidery, Zhuxianzhen woodblock New Year prints and movable-type printing are staffed by artisans working on site, while pedlars, storytellers, acrobats and patrolling guards perform in rotation on the streets by script, and the daytime market life continues into the night illuminations. The large water-borne live show 'Great Song: Dongjing Menghua' links Northern Song stories through several Song ci poems, with the water stage joining the lights of the gate tower — the main event of the park's night tour. Highlights include 'Wang Yuanwai's Daughter Chooses a Groom' and 'Yue Fei Defeats Prince Liang with His Spear'. Tip: enter during the day to catch several live performances. Practical info: located at 5 Longting West Road, Longting District, Kaifeng, Henan; ticket ¥120; opening hours 08:30–22:00.

Tip: Enter during the day to catch several live performances.

• Address: 5 Longting West Road, Longting District, Kaifeng, Henan
• Ticket: ¥120
• Opening: 08:30–22:00

Kaifeng Prefecture was the administrative office of the Northern Song eastern capital (present-day Kaifeng). Bao Zheng served as acting prefect of Kaifeng, and Fan Zhongyan, Ouyang Xiu and Su Shi also held posts here. The present scenic area was rebuilt in the 1990s following Song prefectural office regulations; along the central axis are the main hall, council hall, Plum Blossom Hall and Tianqing Abbey, with the six administrative offices and a prison display on either side. The morning gate-opening ceremony and the Judge Bao trial drama are the most popular attractions. A reconstruction of the chief prefectural office of the Northern Song eastern capital, where Bao Zheng, Fan Zhongyan and Ouyang Xiu all served, it has as its main sights the daily gate-opening ceremony, Judge Bao's trials and the office buildings, and lies on the same old-city line as the Bao Zheng Shrine and Daxiangguo Temple. Tip: watch the gate-opening ceremony around 9:00 and arrive 15 minutes early; it can be combined with Daxiangguo Temple, the Bao Zheng Shrine and Qingming Shanghe Garden into a one-day route. Practical info: located on the north bank of Bao Gong East Lake, Gulou District, Kaifeng; ticket ¥65; opening hours 07:30–18:30. Best season: spring (Apr–May) is pleasant, though the chrysanthemums are not yet out; autumn (Oct–Nov) brings the Chrysanthemum Culture Festival, when the whole city is in bloom. Highlights include Gate-opening Ceremony, Main Hall, Plum Blossom Hall, Judge Bao Trial Performance.

Tip: Watch the gate-opening ceremony around 9:00 and arrive 15 minutes early; it can be combined with Daxiangguo Te…

• Address: North bank of Bao Gong East Lake, Gulou District, Kaifeng
• Ticket: ¥65
• Opening: 07:30–18:30

The Iron Pagoda's predecessor was a wooden pagoda in Kaibao Temple from the early Northern Song, designed by the master builder Yu Hao. Shen Kuo's 'Dream Pool Essays' records the cleverness of the design: because Bianjing's land is flat with no mountains and the northwest wind blows all year, Yu Hao deliberately tilted the pagoda slightly to the northwest, expecting the wind to straighten it within a century. That wooden pagoda was destroyed by lightning fire in the fourth year of Qingli (1044), and in the first year of Huangyou (1049) it was rebuilt in brown glazed brick on Yishan; because the new pagoda stood in Youguo Temple, the Iron Pagoda is also called the Youguo Temple Pagoda. The pagoda is an octagonal, thirteen-storey pavilion-style brick pagoda, 55.08 metres tall, tapering storey by storey; the whole body is built of glazed bricks imitating timber construction, carved with more than 50 kinds of motifs including flying apsaras, soaring dragons, qilin and lotus. The bricks vary in shape yet interlock to form a single structure. In nearly a thousand years it has survived 43 earthquakes and 6 floods, and is China's oldest and tallest surviving glazed-brick pagoda. A stairway inside winds upward, with the doors and windows changing orientation from storey to storey; from the top you can look down over Kaifeng and the Iron Pagoda Lake.

Tip: You can climb the pagoda for a view over Kaifeng; going towards evening is recommended, when the sunset scener…

• Address: 210 Beimen Street, Shunhe Hui District, Kaifeng, Henan
• Ticket: ¥40
• Opening: 07:00–19:00

Daxiangguo Temple was founded in the sixth year of Tianbao of the Northern Qi (555), originally named Jiantuo Temple; in the first year of Yanhe of the Tang emperor Ruizong (712), because he had been titled Prince of Xiang before ascending the throne, it was granted the name Xiangguo Temple. In the Northern Song it was repeatedly enlarged and received an imperial inscribed plaque, and was ranked as a royal temple with the privilege of 'opening the hall for the state'. 'Dongjing Menghua Lu' records that the temple held 'trades of ten thousand surnames' several times a month: from dawn to dusk the halls and monks' quarters became stalls, with books, antiques, paintings, medicinal herbs and acrobatics all gathered in one temple — the liveliest popular market in Northern Song Bianjing. In 'Water Margin', the story of Lu Zhishen uprooting the willow tree is set in the vegetable garden behind the temple. Most surviving buildings date from Qing reconstructions, the Mahavira Hall rebuilt in the Qianlong era; the standing thousand-hand, thousand-eye Guanyin in the temple is carved from a single ginkgo trunk and has long been its greatest treasure. The bell tower holds a great bell of the Qing Qianlong era; struck on frosty autumn mornings it could be heard across half the city — 'Xiangguo frost bell' was one of the eight old views of Bianjing. Tip: a combo ticket with other Kaifeng sights is available, and the temple is a good introduction to Buddhist culture and Song history. Practical info: located at 36 West Section, Ziyou Road, Gulou District, Kaifeng, Henan; ticket ¥40; opening hours 08:00–18:30.

Tip: A combo ticket with other Kaifeng sights is available, and the temple is a good introduction to Buddhist cultu…

• Address: 36 West Section, Ziyou Road, Gulou District, Kaifeng, Henan
• Ticket: ¥40
• Opening: 08:00–18:30

The raised platform on which Longting stands overlays Kaifeng's most complete palace-city strata: it was the Bianzhou yamen city in the Tang, the imperial palace in the Five Dynasties and Northern Song, the Bianjing palace in the Jin, the residence of the Prince of Zhou in the Ming, and in the Qing the Longevity Palace was built on the old site as a place to celebrate the emperor's birthday; the Longting hall stands on this platform. The brick base beneath the hall is about 13 metres high, with 64 stone steps rising in two wings and a coiled-dragon imperial way set between them. The view from the hall is open: to the south stretches Songdu Imperial Street through the old city, while the Pan and Yang lakes flank it left and right, creating a layout of 'a lake within the city, a palace beside the lake'; the scenic area now covers about 86.6 hectares. Folk legend holds that one lake is clear and the other muddy, allegorising the loyalty of the Yang family and the treachery of the Pan family, so the waters and the platform became a stage for tales of loyalty and villainy. The chrysanthemum is Kaifeng's city flower, and since 1983 a large chrysanthemum exhibition has been held every late autumn; the displays around the Longting hall and along the imperial way are the centre of the city's plantings, and from the height you look down on thousands of pots in bloom. Tip: the chrysanthemum show draws crowds in autumn, so buy tickets in advance. Practical info: located at the north end of Songdu Imperial Street, Longting District, Kaifeng, Henan; ticket ¥35; opening hours 07:30–18:00.

Tip: The chrysanthemum show draws crowds in autumn, so buy tickets in advance.

• Address: North end of Songdu Imperial Street, Longting District, Kaifeng, Henan
• Ticket: ¥35
• Opening: 07:30–18:00