China's ancient capital for 13 dynasties, home to the UNESCO-listed Longmen Grottoes and the country's first Buddhist temple.
Luoyang took its turns as a capital across more than a thousand years, and what survives is spread across the city rather than gathered in one place: a cliff of Buddhist carving to the south, the temple traditionally counted as China's first Buddhist foundation out east, a rebuilt palace gate in the middle. Almost nobody flies in — the airport is small and domestic, and the high-speed train from Xi'an takes well under two hours. Two days covers the city, unless you come in April, when the peonies and everyone who came to see them arrive together.
Tickets are real-name and timed: you pick a slot when you buy, and you show the same document at the gate. A passport works — the official notice lists it beside the Chinese ID card — and you can buy at the ticket-centre window as well as online. ¥90 covers both banks of the river, and half a day is the honest allowance.
Luoyang's own airport is small and almost entirely domestic. Nearly everyone comes on the high-speed line — Xi'an North in about an hour and a half, Zhengzhou East in about forty minutes.
The peony festival runs from the start of April to about the fifth of May. Wangcheng Park charges admission for those five weeks; hotels fill; and the museums that normally close on Mondays stay open right through. The park is free for most of the rest of the year, though it charges again for the Spring Festival lantern fair in February, and its zoo charges separately whatever the season.
Two lines: line 1 east–west through the centre, line 2 north–south between the train stations, ¥2–4 a ride. Neither reaches the grottoes — from Longmen station it is bus 71, or about ¥20–30 in a taxi.
Yiyang, Luanchuan, and Song counties — including Laojun Mountain and Baiyun Mountain — are closed to foreign passport holders. No permits are issued; do not attempt to visit.
Official source ✓Tickets ¥90; April weekends sell out by 10:00. Buy via WeChat mini-program or official site; passport required for entry.
Official source ✓Wangcheng Park charges about ¥30 on weekdays / ¥50 on weekends and public holidays during the April festival (normally free). White Horse Temple is ¥35.
Official source ✓
Tens of thousands of Buddhas cut into the limestone on both banks of the Yi River, begun under the Northern Wei in 493 and carried on for six centuries. ¥90, real-name and timed, and the west bank out with the east bank back takes three to four hours. From late March there is a separate night session, ¥90 again: entry 18:00 to 20:00 and everyone out by nine, with only the west bank and Xiangshan Temple open after dark.
Free, but not walk-in: you book a timed slot through the museum's WeChat account, up to three days ahead, and there is no booking desk at the door. If you book on a passport you register a face scan first and enter by facial recognition. Inside is the hour that makes sense of the rest of the city — Erlitou bronzes, Han and Tang tomb figures, the finds of a place that kept being made a capital. Open 9:00 to 17:00 with last entry at 16:30, and closed on Mondays except during the peony festival. Metro line 2 to Wenboyuan, then about 600 m east.
The southern gate of the Sui and Tang palace, rebuilt directly over the excavated foundations, which are the exhibit in the museum inside its base. Work began in 2016 and it opened to visitors in 2019. Open 9:00 to 22:00, later in high summer, so the evening is a real visit and not just a photograph from outside: the gate is floodlit and a projection show is thrown onto the front of it, free to watch from the square. Sold as a single ticket or as a combined one with the other two Sui and Tang palace sites. Metro line 1 to Yingtianmen.
Founded in 68 AD and reckoned the first Buddhist temple in China, twelve kilometres east of the centre. ¥35, and the surprise is the newer end of the grounds: full-size Indian, Thai and Burmese halls, each built by that country. Bus 56 or 801 from Luoyang Station, or about forty minutes by taxi.
An Eastern Zhou burial pit roofed over and left as it was found, under the square in the middle of town: chariots, and the skeletons of the horses still in harness. One chariot has six, the span the rites allowed only a king. ¥30 and about an hour. Open 8:30 to 18:30 and closed Mondays like the Luoyang Museum, with tickets booked online through the same WeChat account. Metro line 1 to Zhouwangcheng Square.
Forty hectares on Zhongzhou Road, free for most of the year and the main site of the peony festival, when it starts charging. The peonies open in April and the crowds come with them; outside those five weeks it is an ordinary city park with a zoo in it. The chariot-pit museum is along the same road.
Luoyang after dark: a free walled 'ancient city' and night-tour chart-topper — but the real engine is the 1,300-plus hanfu shops around it. Rent Tang-style dress and makeup for ¥80–180 (¥50–120 on Minzhu Street outside the gate) and you become part of the show. Reserve on the 'Luoyi Wentour' WeChat account; open 9:00–22:30, last entry 22:00. Arrive after 16:00 for the 18:30 lighting, the Wenfeng Tower 3D show and the ~21:05 water-screen film — expect serious weekend crowds.
The cliff-top golden temples that short video made famous — lit at 18:30 above a sea of cloud. Entry is ¥100, valid 48 hours; the first cableway (¥130 return) is effectively mandatory (4–6 hours on foot otherwise), the second (¥80) depends on your legs, and cableways stop carrying people up after 15:30. It's 150 km from Luoyang, 2.5–3 hours each way: a full day, never the same day as the Longmen Grottoes. The summit runs 8–15°C colder; bring a jacket.
China's only museum of tomb culture — and you actually go down into the tombs: 25 real graves from Han to Song-Jin, moved and rebuilt along a corridor seven metres underground, plus the mural tomb of Bu Qianqiu and the accessible burial chamber of Northern Wei emperor Xuanwu. Free but reserve on the museum's WeChat account; passports work. Closed Mondays and usually the day after holidays. It's cool and dim underground — bring a layer, and think twice with small children.
Twenty-four courses in a set order of eight, four, eight and four. The first eight are cold plates; everything after them arrives swimming in soup, which is where the name comes from. Order it for a table; it does not work for one.
Zhen Bu Tong, Laocheng old town (since 1895)
Illustration — no photograph of this dish was available
White radish cut to threads and steamed until it turns soft and translucent, then arranged as a peony over a clear broth. It is the first dish of the water banquet.
Zhen Bu Tong, Laocheng old town
A Henan breakfast — beef broth thickened with starch and heavy with black pepper, taken with something fried alongside. The stalls that do it well have packed up by mid-morning.
Noodles in fermented mung-bean liquid instead of water: sour, cloudy and thick, with celery, soybeans and sesame leaves stirred through. The most local thing on this list.
Glutinous rice steamed in a bowl with candied fruit and bean paste, then turned out as a dome. It is one of the last four dishes of the water banquet, by which point a dozen bowls of soup have already gone past.
A small sweet cake with preserved peony petals worked into the filling, built on bean paste rather than wheat flour. Sold in boxes around the peony gardens and the old town — a souvenir rather than a meal, and what people carry home from the festival.
Illustration — no photograph of this dish was available
The old streets behind Lijing Gate, with the night food and the lanterns, and metro line 1 at the end of them. Zhen Bu Tong is here. The atmospheric choice, and also the loud one.
¥150–500 a night
The commercial middle of the city along Zhongzhou Road, with the widest choice of hotels and Luoyang Station on metro line 2. Practical rather than pretty.
¥180–550 a night
New hotels around the high-speed station, on line 2, and the closest base to both the grottoes and the Luoyang Museum. You commute in for the old town and the evening.
¥200–600 a night
West of the centre, cheapest of the four, and where the city gets on with its own business. Fine if you are counting yuan, and a long way from everything on this page.
¥120–350 a night
Plenty of the cheaper Luoyang hotels are not registered to take foreign passports and will turn you away at the desk whatever the booking site said. Confirm before you pay, and book early for the first week of April.
Luoyang Longmen station
The high-speed station, roughly 11 km south of the centre, and the one most people use. Xi'an North is an hour and a quarter to two hours, Zhengzhou East about forty minutes to an hour, Beijing West three to four and a half. Some trains are booked to Zhengzhou West instead, which is a long way outside Zhengzhou, so read the station name and not just the city.
Luoyang Station
The older station in Xigong district, closer to the middle of town and still taking fast trains. It sits about 13 km from Longmen station, so check which name your ticket carries before you get in a taxi.
Airports
Luoyang's own airport, LYA, is small and almost entirely domestic. International arrivals normally land at Zhengzhou (CGO), which has a railway station in its ground transport centre, or at Xi'an, and finish by high-speed train.
Both railway stations are on metro line 2. Your passport is the ticket on 12306, and seats open 15 days ahead.
Metro
Two lines only. Line 1 runs east–west along Zhongzhou Road through the old centre; line 2 runs north–south and links both railway stations. ¥2–4 on any trip you are likely to make, roughly 06:30 to 22:30.
Bus
The buses cover what the metro does not: 81 from Luoyang Station to the grottoes, 71 from Longmen station to the grottoes, 56 or 801 to White Horse Temple. A yuan or two, and signed in Chinese only.
Taxi & DiDi
Short rides by the standards of a big Chinese city — Longmen station to the grottoes is about ¥20–30, and most trips inside town come in under that. DiDi has an English app and saves explaining an address.
Set up Alipay or WeChat Pay before you arrive. The transport mini-app makes the QR code the metro gates read, and the same account is how the attraction booking mini-programs take payment.
SEP–OCT
Best weather for Longmen Grottoes photography
OCT
Oct 1–7; expect crowds at all major sites
SEP 28–OCT 28
Longmen stele calligraphy, Guanlin pilgrimage, Funiu red-leaf festival
SEP 20–NOV 30
Golden canopy over sea-of-clouds sunrises
April for the peonies, September and October for clear skies. The city is at its busiest — and most expensive — during the peony festival.
Two to three days: the Longmen Grottoes and the museum, the old town and White Horse Temple, with the parks in peony season.
A taxi is about ¥30–40 and twenty minutes; buses 27, 83 and 98 cost ¥1–2 and take 40–50 minutes.
Metro Lines 1 and 2 cover the spine of the city, buses fill the gaps — 81 runs to the Longmen Grottoes — and taxis start at ¥8.
Laocheng (the old town) behind Lijing Gate for the night food, Xigong for the commercial centre, or Luolong near the high-speed station on Line 2. Many cheaper hotels are not registered for foreign passports, so confirm before you pay.
The Luoyang Water Banquet and its star dish Mudan Yancai, plus hulatang for breakfast, jiang mian tiao, ba bao fan and peony cake.
The Longmen Grottoes — book tickets online ahead — Luoyang Museum, Yingtian Gate, White Horse Temple and the Eastern Zhou chariot pits. Note that Laojun Mountain, Baiyun Mountain and sites in Yiyang, Luanchuan and Song counties are closed to non-Chinese passport holders.