Best Places in Chongqing

Chongqing is a massive sprawling city in the west of China. I spent a month living there during winter holidays and here are my highlights.

Eling park 鹅岭公园

This park is not one for you if you’re unfit, there are a lot of hills, climbing and steps, but that means that when you get up to the park, you get amazing views of the city and two rivers (Jialing and the Yangtze). There’s a tower in the middle of the park, which costs 5rmb to go up and you can see even more of the city, unless pollution is high, like it was when I went. It’s a peaceful park and there is a big tea garden where you can get a cup of tea leaves and a huge flask of hot water, making for a bottomless cup of tea. I sat here for a while writing my diary. There were some noisy people with an electric keyboard, singing high pitched songs, but there were also people fishing nearby in a lake.

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Huahui park 花卉公园

I’ve already talked about this great park before, but I think it deserves another mention. It’s pretty, has plenty of activities for you to watch (and join in with!) such as KTV, karaoke, mahjong or just making chitchat with some grandads. There’s also some tea gardens here as well as a boating lake.

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Ciqikou 磁器口

This is an old style Chinese town, that is full of old style buildings, stairways and surprisingly still has an authentic feel, despite being quite touristy. I liked the narrow alleys and the flowery garlands were so cute, I had to get one. If you go right down to the bottom, there is a nice open area by the river, with plenty of food stands and coconut juice sellers as well as…tea gardens too yep! Do you see a theme here?

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Night time scenery on Line 2

The night time scenery in Chongqing is really amazing and my photos don’t do it justice at all. All the tall buildings have great displays and lights on them that are reflected in the rivers. If you take line 2 of the subway from Linjiangmen heading west, you will see amazing views on the right hand side. A lot of the subway is above ground, making it a very worthwhile 2rmb trip. You often find photographers with fancy tripods stood in some of the stations on this line, waiting for the perfect picture or making time lapses.