Wuhou Shrine and Du Fu Thatched Cottage

Background

The Wuhou Shrine stands at 231 Wuhouci Avenue in Wuhou District, Chengdu, and Du Fu Thatched Cottage lies by Huanhua Creek in the western outskirts of the city; the two are not far apart. In the Three Kingdoms period, Chengdu was the capital of Liu Bei's Shu Han state, and Zhuge Liang served as its chancellor. The Wuhou Shrine honours Zhuge Liang and is regarded as one of the most influential museums of Three Kingdoms relics in China. It has a memorial hall for Zhuge Liang, a hall for Liu Bei, a group of statues of Shu Han figures, and stone inscriptions and steles; the shrine adjoins Liu Bei's Hui Mausoleum, and this pattern of honouring a ruler and his ministers in one place is rare in China. There are two accounts of when the shrine was founded: one holds that it grew out of the Han Zhaolie Temple beside Liu Bei's Hui Mausoleum, that the Wuhou Shrine was later moved next to the mausoleum, and that the two were merged in the early Ming dynasty; another dates the Wuhou Shrine to the Western Jin period (265–316). Du Fu Thatched Cottage is a garden museum honouring Du Fu, covering about 97,000 square metres. In 759 Du Fu came to Chengdu to escape the An Lushan Rebellion and, with the help of friends, built a thatched cottage by Huanhua Creek, where he lived for about four years and wrote more than 240 poems, including Song of My Thatched Roof Ruined by the Autumn Wind and The Prime Minister of Shu. The original cottage is long gone; the main buildings of the park were first built in the early 16th century under the Ming dynasty and extensively renovated in 1811 (the 16th year of the Qing Jiaqing reign). The park holds the Gongbu Shrine, a reconstructed thatched cottage and the Daya Hall, which has a large mural of scenes from Du Fu's poems and statues of twelve poets. In 1961 Du Fu Thatched Cottage was listed as a national key cultural heritage site.

Local customs

• At the Wuhou Shrine, see the red walls and bamboo shade, the Shu Han statues and the steles, then step out to Jinli next door and sit in a teahouse or try snacks on its western Sichuan-style old street
• at Du Fu Thatched Cottage, see the reconstructed cottage, the Daya Hall mural and the poetry steles, and stroll by Huanhua Creek.

Travel tips

• Ticket prices and opening hours for both sites are as officially announced. The two can be visited on the same day: take the metro or a bus to a nearby stop and walk in, and travel between them by bus or taxi
• the ride is not long.
• Good in every season: spring and autumn bring green bamboo and trees, summer is shady inside the gardens, and winter has fewer visitors.