Take train T585 0830/1236 from Beijing to Handan City and the ticket charge is CNY65.00 for hard seat and CNY123.00 for hard sleeper. Upon arrival at Handan, we suggest you find a hotel to leave your luggage and travel lightly in the afternoon. Hotels are easy to be found in LingYuan Road, which is near the railway station and the bus station. Then take bus No. 2 at LingYuan Road bus stop to Cong Tai Park, you may visit the largest unearthed epitaph inside. The first entrance fee is CNY3.00. Then take taxi or public bus to visit the Handan City Museum which keeps the record of the past of Handan. If you take bus there, the bus No. 1, 2, 3, 17, 22, 25, 29, 33 and 41 are all reachable.

Cizhou Kilns in Handan City

Continue your train journey on the second day for about 3 hours to Shexian County to visit Wa Huang Gong. The train is 6423 0706/1025 at the cost of CNY9.00 for the hard seat and CNY16.00 for the soft seat (kind notice: this train runs quite slow but there are a few passengers on. You may feel less crowded. The long-distance bus is also available, but there are always many persons taking it and it might stop on the way to wait for other persons to get on, so it also takes about 3 hours). Upon arrival, you may charter a tricycle for a round trip to Wa Huang Gong for about CNY25.00. The Wa Huang Gong was the first ancient architecture built in North Qi Dynasty to worship the goddess Nv Wa in legend. It was built against the mountains, and also it is one of the great three hanging architecture buildings in China. Among the cultural relics inside, the most precious is the carved Buddhist Classics on the cliffs, and it is regarded as the world's art treasure and also the "No. 1 cliff classics complex". Take the tricycle to the railway station directly and take train 6424 1445/1833 back to Handan.

Kind notice: At the foot of the Wa Huang Gong, there are many local people selling the incenses and they all say it is for free, but when you finish your travel, they will force you to give them money for what you have taken from them, so we don't suggest you take their so-called free incenses.

The third day's main destinations are the Grotto Art of Mt. Xiang Tang and nearby scenic spots. After having breakfast at the hotel in the morning, take bus No. 4 at the railway station to Nan Huan Road and connect bus No. 5 to Fengfeng Kuang Qu (Fengfeng Mine Area), where was ever the locus of Cizhou Kiln in China's history. You may buy some porcelains of Cizhou Kiln's replica. Mt. Xiang Tang also locates here. There are two temples: one is Nan Xiang Tang Temple and another one is Bei Xiang Tang temple. A tower made of bricks and grottos are seated in the two temples respectively. Once you get off from the bus No. 5, walk to the west direction for about 1 mile to get to Nan Xiang Tang Temple to visit the tower and the grotto art. One hour is enough to visit this site. And walk to the south to Black Dragon Cave. Then take bus No. 2 (the bus stop is the same with bus No. 5) to the Bei Xiang Tang Temple to visit. Then take bus to Cishan and get off at Cishan Township, walk to the west for about 1km to the Cixi railway station to take train 6424 1633/1833 back to Handan City.

Zhaozhou Bridge, Shijiazhuang

On the fourth day's morning, take bus No. 6 at the railway station and get off at Huang Liang Meng (Huang Liang Dream) stop to visit the temple, where a legend happened here in Tang Dynasty. The legend said that once there was a young man who complained a lot for the perplexed future and he could not find a place to put to good use with his talent. One day, he came to this temple and talked with an old man very congenially. He told this old man all of his complaints and then the old man gave him a pillow and suggested he sleep for a while. The young man went to sleep very quickly and in his dream he became the Number One Scholar, married a very beautiful lady and was an important official in his generation, died when he was 81 years old with enjoying nabobism for a whole life. But when he woke up, he realized that it was only a dream but he awaked to philosophic theory of life and then decided to follow the old man who was actually an immortal. After visiting this site, take bus No. 6 to the railway station and then take train 2070 1435/1644 to Shijiazhuang City and stay overnight at Shijiazhuang.

Zhaozhou Bridge locates in the Zhaoxian County of Hebei province. On the fifth day's morning, find the public bus No. 50 which is near the railway station to Nanjiao bus station, and then connect the long-distance bus for about 30 minutes to Bolin Buddhist Temple. And then take taxi to visit the Zhaozhou Bridge (or, you may take long-distance bus which runs from Nanjiao to Nanjin and get off at the entrance of the Zhaozhou Bridge, then walk about hundreds of meters to visit the Zhaozhou Bridge, the entrance fee is CNY35.00). Zhaozhou Bridge was built in Sui Dynasty and has experienced 1400 years of vicissitudes but still stands firm and elegantly to welcome the visitors from all over the world. Then take taxi to visit the Bolin Buddhist Temple, which was first built in Song Dynasty with 1700 years history, and now it is also the location of the Buddhist College of Hebei province. If you come to visit Zhaoxian County in March, you will have chance to visit the blossom of pear. For today's hotel accommodation, you may find a hostel nearby or just stay overnight within the temple.

In the sixth day's morning, take bus at the entrance of the Bolin Buddhist Temple to Nanjiao, then catch bus No. 201 for about one hour to Zhengding County, continue to connect bus No. 1 to Longxing Temple, which is the national AAAA tour spot and is one of the ten famous temples in China. The admission fee is CNY30.00. Longxing Temple was first built in Sui Dynasty and it contains a very big Buddhist statue that enjoys the equal fame with the Buddhist statue of the Lama Temple in Beijing, the Buddhist statue of Dule Temple in Jixian County, Tianjin and the Buddhist statue of Puning Temple in Chengde. There also stands a Kwan Yin statue which was complimented as the "the oriental god of beauty". Once visiting here, we suggest you visit deasil or find a tour guide to avoid missing any important sites or cultural relics. Then take bus No. 1 to Zhengding County and connect bus 201 to Shijiazhuang City. Stay overnight at Shijiazhuang.

Street scene of Shijiazhuang

The seventh day will be a busy day. In the morning, take train T582 0733/0922 to Gaobeidian station, the train ticket charge is CNY30.00 for the hard seat and CNY47.00 for the soft seat, and then connect bus to Yixian County which may take you about 2 hours, then take micro bus from Yixian County to the West Qing Tombs.

Or, if you choose long-distance bus instead of taking train in the morning, you need to find the Shijiazhuang bus station which is near the railway station, and take the bus from Shaijiazhuang to Baoding for about 1.5 hours, and then connect bus or public bus No. 9 to Yixian County for about 35 minutes. Finally, you may arrive at the West Qing Tombs by taking bus from Baoding to Laiyuan or Baoding to the West Qing Tombs.

Kind notice: It is really complicated from Shijiazhuang to the West Qing Tombs and may cost you more time since you are a stranger here. If your second day's tour is really loose, you may take bus to Yixian County in the sixth day's afternoon and stay overnight in Yixian County and connect bus to the tombs in the next day.

The West Qing Tombs contain thousands of palaces and temple buildings, and also hundreds of stone architecture and stone carvings. It is one of the largest and the best-preserved imperial mausoleum complexes of Qing Dynasty and it is also the representative of the mausoleum art in China's history.

Once finishing your tour, you may go back in the same way to Yixian County and then connect the long-distance bus to Beijing.