Yandu Ancient City | Stuck Indoors? Time for a Virtual Trip! (Part 1)
White and red blossoms intermingle, small groups come out to enjoy the spring. Every April, when grass grows and orioles fly, it's the perfect season for an outing.
In past years, as the spring breeze brought warmth, you might have seen crowds scattered across the green fields, with laughter and joy everywhere. But in recent years, due to repeated outbreaks of the pandemic, most people have been staying home to prevent infection, so there have been few chances to enjoy nature’s beautiful scenery.
Year after year, the flowers are similar; year after year, the sights are different. April is a month of vibrant colors and blossoms. It would be a pity if such splendid scenery had no one to admire it.
But no worries — since that’s the case, let’s go on a virtual tour together! Let your vision not be constrained by space, let your mood not be blocked by distance, and let the real-time beauty unfold right before your eyes!
And today, let’s visit Yandu Ancient City!
Photo by Yu Zhengwan
Perhaps many people don’t know this place. Yandu Ancient City is located in Yi County, Baoding, Hebei. Yi County, tracing its origins back to the ancient Qin dynasty, has endured through a thousand years of time, a city with a profound historical heritage that is well worth visiting and studying.
Yandu Ancient City is built upon such a fine foundation. Even as a city that arose later, it inherits the ancient charm imbued in the land, and so from birth it carries a touch of bygone elegance.
Photo by Yang Zenghong
Moreover, the craftsmen are well-versed in the essence of Eastern aesthetics — the solemn and dignified, yet exquisitely elegant, ancient buildings of the Ming and Qing dynasties, and the graceful, understated, rhythmic beauty of Huizhou-style architecture. These artistic conceptions, infused with superb craftsmanship, are traced in bold, colorful strokes upon the architectural fabric shaped by bricks and tiles, letting the splendid forms show on the outside while the spirit and essence of history are deeply embedded within.
Photo by Zhou Yong
In the ancient city in April, architecture is not the most eye-catching protagonist, but it remains a bright spot that cannot be ignored.
Perhaps it’s the dark tiles and vermilion gates, their intense colors overpowering the spring; or perhaps it’s the layered, overlapping eaves of tall buildings, as if reaching out to embrace the sunset glow and birds. Architecture is a motionless art, but it also has a ‘flowing’ beauty in different seasons.
As the first waterside ancient city in North China, the beauty of Yandu Ancient City can’t be fully captured with pen and paper. If you’re interested in ancient architecture, why not come and explore when it’s safe and appropriate?
