Chengdu rewards a slow plan, and the way people get it wrong is by filling it: a whole day queueing for pandas, three meals in Kuanzhai Alley, Dujiangyan and Qingcheng Shan on the same afternoon. Four days here is one early morning for the pandas, one day out at Leshan on the first train, and two afternoons with nothing in them — which is not padding, it is the thing the city is for. Everything below is on the metro, and foreign Visa and Mastercard tap straight in at the gates.
At a glance
- Day 1People's Park → Heming teahouse → Kuanzhai Alley
- Day 2Panda Avenue → shuttle 408 → Panda Base → Wuhou Shrine → Jinli
- Day 3Chengdu East → Leshan → the Giant Buddha → back for hotpot
- Day 4Caotang Beilu → Du Fu Thatched Cottage → Chen Mapo Tofu → Taikoo Li
Day 1
Tea first, then the lanes
People's Park → Heming teahouse → Kuanzhai Alley
Walk into People's Park — it is free — and find the Heming teahouse by the lake. A bamboo chair and a lidded cup of jasmine is about ¥15 and the refills run all afternoon; the ear cleaners working the tables charge around ¥30 and are part of the afternoon rather than a scam. Plan nothing for two hours, because you will not do it. Kuanzhai Alley is fifteen minutes' walk, or line 4 to its own door: an hour at dusk is right, and eat somewhere else afterwards — it is a handsome street and the worst-value meal in Chengdu. Book the panda base tonight if you have not already.
Day 2
Pandas at opening, then the Three Kingdoms
Panda Avenue → shuttle 408 → Panda Base → Wuhou Shrine → Jinli
Gates open at 7:30, or 8:00 from November to February, and this is the one morning worth the alarm: by ten the pandas have eaten and climbed into a tree to sleep. Metro line 3 to Panda Avenue, then shuttle 408. Book fourteen days ahead on the official mini-program; passport holders have their own lane at the gate. Afterwards take line 10 to Wuhou Shrine — exit A2 opens at the gate — and do the shrine first while it is quiet, ¥50, last tickets 17:30. Jinli next door is free and stays open to about ten, which is when to eat sandapao there.
Day 3
Leshan, on the first train
Chengdu East → Leshan → the Giant Buddha → back for hotpot
About an hour from Chengdu East, ¥54 in second class, ¥80 to go in. Take the first train and be at the gate when it opens, because the staircase cut down the cliff beside the Buddha is single file and the queue runs for hours at weekends. If the queue has already won, the river boat passes the full seventy-one metres of him for much less time and money, and the view from the water is the one the photographs are taken from. Back in Chengdu, this is the night for hotpot.
Day 4
Du Fu, mapo tofu, and one last skewer
Caotang Beilu → Du Fu Thatched Cottage → Chen Mapo Tofu → Taikoo Li
Line 4 to Caotang Beilu. The Thatched Cottage is ¥50 and the quietest place on this trip: huts, bamboo and water on the ground where Du Fu lived in the 760s. Read one of his poems before you go in, or it is only a garden. Chen Mapo Tofu is on the same street — the original, and still the version everything else is measured against. Finish at Chunxi Road, which runs into IFS and Taikoo Li and is one place rather than three, and eat chuanchuan: hotpot sold by the skewer and counted by the stick at the end.
Eat like you mean it
- Chengdu hotpot · chuanchuanBeef tallow, chilli and Sichuan pepper. Chuanchuan is the same thing on sticks, counted at the end.
- Mapo tofuChen Mapo Tofu on Qinghua Road is the original, and it is next door to the Thatched Cottage.
- Dandan noodlesA small bowl and no soup. If it arrives swimming, it is the tourist version.
- Long chaoshouSichuan wontons, thin skins, served clear or in red oil. The Chunxi Road flagship does both.
- Fuqi feipianCold sliced beef and offal under chilli oil and peanuts. Order it on a sampler plate first.
- Zhong dumplingsPork dumplings under sweet garlic soy — sweeter than they look, and the point.
Where to stay
- Chunxi Road and Taikoo LiFirst trip: shopping, snacks and lines 2 and 3 under the door.
- Kuanzhai Alley and People's ParkWalk to the teahouse in the morning and back for a nap.
- Wuhou and JinliQuieter, older, and cheapest of the three central choices.
- Yulin and JiuyanqiaoWhere Chengdu goes out at night. Not for early starts.
Before you go
- Book the panda base fourteen days ahead on its official mini-program and be there when it opens. Arriving at ten means photographing sleeping bears in trees.
- If the base sounds like too much, Panda Valley out at Dujiangyan holds far fewer people for the same animals. Locals send friends there when the city base is at its worst.
- Walk Kuanzhai Alley, do not eat a meal in it — the same goes for the restaurants inside any of the sights here. The city that feeds you best is the one two streets away from them.
- Museums here book ahead and shut on Mondays. Check the day before you build one into a morning.
- Chunxi Road, IFS and Taikoo Li are one place, not three. They are a single afternoon.
- Take the first train to Leshan. The cliff staircase is single file and the weekend queue is measured in hours; the river boat is the fallback and the view the photographs use.
- Resist filling the empty afternoons. The classic first-timer's mistake here is a whole day queueing for pandas, three meals in Kuanzhai Alley, and Dujiangyan and Qingcheng Shan crammed into one day — four days of hurrying through the one city in China that is famous for not hurrying.
One honest thing — The panda base is booked on its official mini-program fourteen days ahead, and the whole point of it is being at the gate when it opens — by ten they have eaten and gone to sleep in a tree.
