Gansu, like a piece of magnificent treasure jade inlaid in central China's loess plateau, Inner Mongolia plateau and Qinghai-Tibet plateau, is the key place and the golden section of the Silk Road. TopChinaTravel would like to introduce some of the Best Places to visit in Gansu, to help you find your way to explore the unspoiled beauty of this charming and mysterious area. Where to visit in Gansu? Travel with us, just let us to be your guide and accompany with you to discover the charms between stone carving art and historical sites of the Silk Road.
Mogao Grottoes (Dunhuang)
Mogao Grottoes is one of three noted grottoes in China for its fabulous frescos and statues. Today, the total number of Mogao Grottoes is 492 in which there are over 2,800 sculptures and 45,000 square meters of murals. There are five grottoes with a wooden structure. The Mogao Grottoes is the largest, oldest and the best-preserved Buddhist grottoes with the richest contents in the world today.
The painted clay figures and the murals in Mogao Caves came into being at the same time. The ensuing thousand years witnessed their recreation, perfection as well as absorption of the merits of western ancient arts from India, Greece, Iran etc on the national basis. It has become a brilliant pearl in the Chinese art treasure troves.
Yumenguan Pass (Dunhuang)
Yumenguan Pass was a strategic pass on the ancient Silk Road. Yumen in Chinese means the jade of Gate. It was so named because the jade of Hotan in what is now Xinjiang region was transported to central China through this pass.
The city is square, with well-preserved city walls and two gates in the west and the north respectively. The city wall is 10 meters high, three meters wide at the top, and five meters wide at the bottom. Both people and horses can go directly up to the wall. Yumenguan Pass takes a square form and the well-preserved body of wall was built with stable loess with each gate in the west and beneath width 5 meters and a horse-road leading to the upper platform of the pass wall.
Crescent Spring and Singing Sand Dune (Dunhuang)
The Singing Sand Dune and Crescent Spring are twin sisters of natural beauty in the wild Gobi Desert. The sand mountain sings because it is divine while the spring is beautiful because it is miracle. Tourists get thrilled and distracted no matter when they have a bird's-eye-view of the beautiful sand dunes from the top of the mountain or wander beside the clear spring. It's no surprise to have the saying that Singing Sand Dune helps people free from all worries and Crescent Spring purifies people's minds.
The so-called singing sand in does not sing by itself, but creates singing sound when people tread or slide on the surface of the sand, which is a kind of miracle of the nature. The water in Crescent Spring is fove meters deep. The crescent-like lake is surrounded by the sand but never buried by it. The water in the lake is very clear all year around.
Dunhuang Yadan National Geologic Park (Dunhuang)
Dunhuang Yadan National Geologic Park is the largest one of Yadan Landform found so far. The park stretches twenty-five kilometers from north to south and about two kilometers from east to west. It features the unique and wonderful scenes and landscapes of gobi desert.
The most magnificent view is that you can find the 'miniature' for much world-famous architecture inside the park, such as the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, the Potala Palace in Tibet, the Arabian mosque, the Pyramid and Sphinx in Egypt, the relics of ancient Roman and so on. It seems as an architectural art museum of the world while located in a desert and delivers many delights and enjoyments to you. In addition, you will find other works of art by nature, such as sculptures of lions, caravans trekking along the Silk Road, and turtles emerging from the sea.
Bingling Thousand-Buddha Caves (Lanzhou)
Bingling Thousand-Buddha Caves re a famous religious attraction in Lanzhou, ranks the second after the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang. At some point the caves were named the Thousand Buddha Caves because Bingling means "ten thousand-Buddha" in the Tibetan language, despite the fact that there have never been more than 200 grottoes.
The stone sculptures in Bingling Thousand-Buddha Caves represent the social situations and customs during ancient times. In the vicinity of the caves are green hills, crystal-clear water, grotesque stones and precipitous cliffs, which add more beauty to this artistic site. After the founding of People's Republic of China, the State Council designated the site as a key cultural relic, and placed it under state protection.
White Pagoda Mountain Park (Lanzhou)
White Pagoda Mountain Park (Baitashan) stands at the northern bank of the Yellow River, in Lanzhou City of Gansu Province. This park got its name from the white pagoda in Baitasi (White Pagoda Temple) on its summit.
Opened in 1958, White Pagoda Mountain Park gains its reputation form the three stately and magnificent ancient architectural complexes.
And the White Pagoda Temple was built to commemorate a Tibetan lama of the Sa-skya-pa Sect of Tibetan Buddhism who died in Lanzhou on his way to Mongolia for an audience with Genghis Khan. Towering 17 meters, the pagoda is a solid brick structure.
Gansu Provincial Museum (Lanzhou)
Built in Russian architectural style, the museum is shaped like the letter "E". This is one of the best sights in the city. The museum has an excellent selection of exhibits relating to Gansu and the Silk Road. The collections include an extensive range of Neolithic pottery, dating back between 7,000-500BC.
The exhibition of the Silk Road, containing many treasures including Neolithic painted pottery that was excavated from the town of Dadiwan, whose ancient civilization is believed to span back some 7,000 years. Other significant exhibits include early examples of calligraphy in ink and carved into wood. There are also natural history exhibits including a skeleton of a mammoth, which is the 4m-tall Mammoth, whose remains were excavated from the Yellow River basin in 1973, is a fearsome sight.
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