Chengde Travel Guide
The little town Chengde gained its prominence during the Qing Dynasty when the emperors built a palace where they spend their summer months when the heat in Beijing became unbearable.
Chengde Summer Resort, together with the temples around, was added to the World Heritage List by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) in 1994. So far, many scenic attractions in Chengde have already been rated as 4-A class, the highest level in this field in China.
Chengde has advantaged and abundant tourist resources. It has the world's largest royal hunting- the Mulan Paddock; the largest royal garden-the Summer Resort; the greatest royal temple group -the Eight Temples in the north of the Great Wall; the biggest wooden Buddha statue -the Kwan-yin Bodhisattva with a thousand hands and a thousand eyes, and the shortest river- the Hot River.
Chengde Summer Resort occupies a large area, incorporating countless buildings into the natural setting of plains, mountains, lakes and islands to create an impressive scene which was praised by the emperor Kangxi, who reckoned its natural scenery more beautiful than the West Lake in Hangzhou Zhejiang province.
The Eight Temples in the north of the Great Wall around the Summer Resort is resplendent and magnificent. It fuses the architecture styles of the various nationalities in China such as Man nationality, Han nationality and Mongolian nationality to create buildings of multi-features.
The Mulan Paddock, familiar to many people, has been rated as a National Forest Park owning to its magic charm of a great grassland whose beauty was once described in a Chinese poem, like a peaceful and harmonious picture with a vast sky above, boundless grassland below and wind blowing the low grass then flocks and herds coming into view.
In the north of Chengde is Wulingshan Mountain Natural Reserve; in the west lies the No.1 Grassland for the purpose of spending one's holiday and in the east are Yuquanxing Palace and Liaohe River Holiday Zone.
Best Time to Visit
Chengde has a continental monsoon climate, half wet and half dry. The region is situated in the hinterland of Yanshan Mountain in the transitional belt of Inner-Mongolian Plateau and North China Plain as well as the transitional belt of the warm temperate belt and the cold temperate belt.
The whole region is made up of two kinds of terrains: plateau above the dam and mountainous region below the dam. And the climatic differences are thus quite obvious.
The best time for going to the plateau above the dam is during July and August. At the very time, flowers are here and there and it is cool and foggy. While the time from the beginning of September to the beginning of October is most suitable for visiting the Mulan Paddock and appreciating the spectacular scenery in late autumn, with a mountain of red maple leaves, as if everything in the mountain has been dyed.