Four Atmospheres of Fall- Chinese Autumn Wonderlands You Need to Visit
TA's 2020 recommendations for places to go in China this fall. Find our Autumn travel destination recommendations below, including Jiuzhaigou Valley (Sichuan), Kanas (North Xinjiang), Xiangshan Mountain (Beijing) & some others closer to home. Pictures included.
A season with weather that gets people in a mood to wander - wander out and explore the scenic painted-tree wonderlands of Autumn China.
Walking carefree through an Autumn wonderland of fiery scarlet and sunburst orange leaves sound kind of nice, doesn't it?
Don't let another year's most scenic season escape you.
Here are some recommendations for places to go in China this fall.
Jiuzhaigou Valley
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四川 九寨沟
Where is it:
Jiuzhaigou Valley is located in Sichuan Province, central China – a little over 400 kilometers from the provincial capital of Chengdu.
About it:
Home of "the one lake to ruin all others for you for the foreseeable future."
This lake is magical.
This the general consensus of among the people who have made the trip Jiuzhaigou Valley lake. If you've never been before then this may sound a little dramatic, but just take a look at the pictures and you can understand what they're getting at.
This lake is the heart of Jiuzhaigou. The lake's spirit is the dancing leaves of the lakeside forest. Splashed with the colors of the season,
Autumn here is stunning.
(Jiuzhaigou, we apologize for only having these pictures on hand to convey your beauty. They don't do you justice...)
Kanas， Xinjiang
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新疆喀纳斯
Where is it:
Xinjiang is located in China's northwest - the mainland's largest Province which occupies roughly 1/6th of China's total land area. Xinjiang's border stretches 5600km – which equals roughly a quarter of China's border.
About it:
The name "Kanas" comes from Mongolian, meaning "beautiful and mysterious lake".
Kanas is one place where several rare atmospheres come together into a single picture, which is why people call "the Switzerland of the East" and "the photographer's dreamland".
Waves of vibrant sunburst orange Birch trees wash among the forests that border onto rolling pale-grass meadows. Beyond the open meadows, snow-capped mountains rise tower on the horizon.
Journey here to experience a borderland Autumn paradise, meet the native Tuvinian people(known for their beautiful women!), and perhaps even encounter the "monster of the lake" (part of what makes it so mysterious!).
Beijing's Xiangshan Mountain
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北京香山
Where is it:
Beijing - China's capital - a cultural metropolis with over 3000 years of history. Forbidden City Palace? Great Wall of China? .. you'll find them here! Autumn puts a different filter on any of these.
About it:
Known for deep red Autumns, this mountain forest park only just gained recognition on the list of Great Mountains of the World in 2012, but within the mainland, Xiangshan has drawn attention for centuries.
Dynasty in, dynasty out, Xiangshan has been the location of the imperial family's summer getaway palace. Successively cultivated and refined by imperial servant landscapers and architects, this eventually became the official imperial Yuanlin garden park in the Qing dynasty.
Every time Autumn rolls around, the hills of smoke trees shift violently into a vivid shade of scarlet red, saturating the atmosphere over the mountain and fields. This atmosphere draws huge crowds from the city, and for good reason!
These are our first three recommendations
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For us, some of our recommendations are a little bit too far away for locals - it can be kind of hard to find the opportunity to get all the way to Xinjiang to enjoy some Autumn outdoors.
Hangzhou'ers and Shanghai'ers - here are some autumn destinations for fall foliage enjoyment a little closer to home.
Tachuan, Anhui Province
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安徽塔川
Where is it:
Try as you might, there's no imagining a more idyllic color, cottage and-field image of the Autumn countryside than you'll find here, just 3 hours' drive from Hangzhou - in Tachuan,
Anhui. Located in Huangshan city, Tachuan sits a level above the rest as one of China's 'Great Four' scenic Autumn getaway locations.
About it:
Every year, as Autumn deepens, the color Chinese Tallow trees buzz alive. In late October the colors play amongst one-other, each shifting from lively green, into mellow yellow then red – some trees sooner, some later – creating a fantastic interplay of vivid color. This Autumn show inspires awe year after year, without fail. But wait, it gets even better.
It's only in this area that the fiery reds and sunburst yellows of Autumn find their perfect backdrop – the white-walled black tile-roofed aesthetic of traditional Huizhou dwellings. This element of tradition makes Anhui Autumns particularly aesthetically satisfying, and uniquely Chinese!
Like we mentioned earlier, Tachuan isn't the only destination in the region suited to fall-time travel (…just the best). But some say that "Southern China's most dazzling fall color destination is, in fact, the city of Anhui". You'll find Anhui – a low-key yet beautiful Prefecture – just to the north-west of Zhejiang.
Maybe you missed the sprawling flower fields that bloom here in Spring, but don't let Autumn slip through your fingers as well! So now you know where to go – but maybe you need a more specific sightseeing strategy? Never fear! TA is here to guide you in the right direction.
Read below then grab your camera, set off with confidence, and start committing your Chinese fall-time memories to film!
Yellow Mountain, Anhui Province
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黄山
About it:
The king brand as far as the world of Chinese mountains goes, Yellow mountain's peaks have been greeting climbing visitors for centuries. It has even found it's way into Chinese legend.
A feature that commonly strikes visitors is the mountain peaks. They stand towering, odd and multifarious, like creatures summoned up from the ground, with pine trees growing from their shoulders. When viewed from different angles, these peaks give entirely different impressions.
Autumn comes, and in a stroke, the mountain and peaks are splashed with bright colors.
Enjoy!
PS: we would be doing you a disservice if we failed to mention the Yellow Mountain's renowned sunsets and sunrises. Enjoy a colourful Autumn hike during the day, reach a peak and watch the sun set into a sea of clouds, then take a cable car off the mountain - OR, spend a night up top with tents, camping, food and friends.
Huihang Old Road
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徽杭古道
About it:
The old path that connected Anhui and Hangzhou. For one thousand one hundred years, this was the path that goods of all sorts took when they were to be transported into the Zhejiang region.
These days practical transportation on the road has faded out, but now, and especially every Autumn, the trail comes back to life – this time as of the region's hottest outdoor hiking trails.
Trailwalk it:
If you're game, you can hike from Hangzhou all the way to Anhui – fall foliage all the way! The journey takes about 4-5 hours, the route is relatively simple and low-difficulty, and is suitable for both young and old.
Chengkan Ancient Village
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呈坎古村
About it:
This old village is like the secret Autumn-colored gemstone of Anhui.
Highlight: Architecture
Take advantage of the most comfortable season of the year to walk these slab stone-paved, high and narrow white-wall streets. Old mottled wood signboards mark history on the alleyway walls. In fact, we should probably mention that Chengkan is entirely unique as the best-preserved Ming Dynasty-era (about 800 years ago) village in existence.
This means the village also preserves architecture from each subsequent dynasty as well, making this a site with enormous historic value and plenty to discover.
Shitan Village, Anhui Province
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石潭古村
Highlight: Autumn harvest sunning
Shitan provides one central attraction that puts it on our list. That is, the Autumn harvest sunning.
On rooves, walls, balconies… basically anywhere there's enough space to place one, sunning beds laid with colorful fresh vegetables, nuts and grains are laid out. The result – a visual feast.. and that's before you add in the fall foliage!
About it:
A village town laid full of color, set amongst the wilderness and wrapped in blue mountains where white chrysanthemums bloom. This is Autumn in Shitan.
Harvest Crop Sunning:
In China, village townspeople who make their homes in rugged and complicated terrain are faced with a problem – no flat ground. No ground means no place to dry perishable harvest crops, but through practical necessity, a wonderful village phenomenon emerged. Everyone began using any space they could – rooves, front and back porches, windowsills and walls, to place their sunning beds and hang dry their harvest produce.
Before long, it was a tradition. As the grains, fruits, and vegetables come into season, this little town becomes upbeat and alive with color. With time word of this found the ears of the artistic types, and now the unique scenes of life in Fall Harvest Shi’tan are a hotspot for painters and photographers chasing the spark of creative inspiration. Take a visit to the place made Fall Harvest sunning romantic~
To be honest, we could spend forty days and forty nights talking telling you about the beauty of Anhui and still not get through it all, so we're going to stop here and leave the rest for you to discover in good time.
Looking to discover China's Autumn Atmosphere's? We can help.
Contact us!
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