From Lijiang to Lugu Lake: Water Nymph Flowers Bloom in June

June in Yunnan may be the rainy season, but the breeze is just perfect, flowers are blooming everywhere, and the water nymph flowers of Lugu Lake have blossomed. Snow mountains, ancient towns, and white clouds – these are the most beautiful symbols of Yunnan. Come with me to Lijiang once again.

Every time I come to Lijiang, I must visit Dayan Ancient Town. From my youth to middle age, I’ve been to Lijiang many times, each time with a different mindset. From curious exploration to a peaceful desire for leisure, I’ve changed, but the ancient town remains the same – still bustling and gorgeous. Although many criticize it for being overly commercialized, wandering through the maze of alleys and discovering more beautiful corners is still my favorite thing to do every time I visit Lijiang. Staying in a guesthouse with a view of layered rooftops, getting lost in the old town, and daydreaming on the rooftop while gazing at Yulong Snow Mountain – these are the best moments in Dayan Ancient Town. This time, I also discovered many lovely alleys worth strolling, and I’d like to share them with you.

Zhenxing Lane: Lantern Street, it’s really beautiful here!! The wooden houses on both sides are adorned with lanterns, evoking the feeling of Spirited Away.

Sakura Restaurant: I never knew a restaurant could be even more beautiful than a garden – surrounded by flowers, it’s so romantic~ I recommend coming in the evening.

Xianwen Lane (Oil-paper Umbrella): The famous umbrella street, with different charms in the morning and at night. Not far from the popular Sakura Restaurant, you can visit both together.

Lijiang Old Town – Dayan Flower Lane: A small lane that gathers many Yunnan specialty cultural and creative products, plus a cute colorful staircase.

Dayan Ancient Town is like a maze, with many unnamed yet incredibly beautiful alleys. Filled with sunshine, flowers, ethnic charm, and music, I’m happy to wander aimlessly here, emptying my mind~

🕒 Opening hours: All day 💰 Ticket: Free 🚌 Transportation: Take bus 4 or 18 to Zhongyi Market, get off and walk about 1 km. Take bus 2 or 13 to the Ancient Town Parking Lot, or bus 7 to the Department Store, and enter through the North Gate on foot. You can also take bus 2, 3, or 12 to Nanmen Street Station and enter through the South Gate. There are parking lots near every major gate, so those driving here don’t need to worry.

In Dayan Ancient Town, you must choose a guesthouse with great views to watch the sunset and enjoy the journey, stepping out amidst flowers. So this time I chose the Tinghuatang Guesthouse in the ancient town. The guesthouse is a traditional courtyard layout of Lijiang Old Town, built with logs, full of ancient charm~ It has a small garden where daisies and hydrangeas are in full bloom. The whole atmosphere is especially cozy and comfortable – this is the beauty of Lijiang.

I particularly love the wall on one side of the courtyard covered with vines, stretching from the rooftop down to the wall base, so lush and beautiful~ On the other side of the lobby, there’s an open-air courtyard for dining, planted with hydrangeas, forming large, healing clusters. Used to the small hydrangeas in Beijing, I feel only Yunnan can grow such big ones, haha.

🌟 Rooftop Terrace I like the rooftop terrace even more than the garden. From here, you can overlook the entire old town and see Yulong Snow Mountain. You can enjoy sunrise and sunset here, and at night, admire the night view – simply perfect.

The rooftop is designed in tatami style, with bohemian cushions, blankets, and a round table. Lying directly on the tatami and watching Lijiang’s sunset glow is an incomparable joy~ After the sunset, the nightscape unfolds, and the beauty of Lijiang Old Town is worth waiting for slowly!

🌟 Guest Rooms The rooms are in an elegant old-town style, with a minimalist yet not plain design. I really like the window design – when you open the window, you can see the guesthouse’s small garden. Guesthouse: #Tinghuatang Private Inn (Lijiang Flagship) 📍 Address: Inside Lijiang Old Town (no cars allowed). After arriving at Lijiang Old Town, you can contact the guesthouse butler to meet you at the entrance and help with your luggage.

Having been to Lijiang too many times, I’ve already visited Dayan Old Town and Shuhe Old Town. This time I went to the relatively less-known Baisha Old Town, and I was truly amazed. It preserves the simple charm of Naxi culture while also having many artistic, delightful little shops. Importantly, the view of Yulong Snow Mountain here is much more magnificent than the one seen from Dayan Old Town; it really feels like a hidden paradise beneath the snow mountain. Here, you can find the sunshine, snowy mountains, and slow life of your dreams~

Baisha Old Town is about 10 kilometers from Dayan Ancient Town. It is the cradle of Naxi culture and the residence of the Mu chieftains before the Ming Dynasty. The whole town is not large, and there’s really just one street worth exploring, but it’s very interesting. Each shop feels unique, unlike Dayan Old Town where goods are highly repetitive. There are tie-dye, handicrafts, painters, exquisite handmade items. Locals and tourists seem more harmonious. Just a slight lift of the head reveals the beautiful, magnificent Yulong Snow Mountain – perhaps this is what a paradise looks like.

There are several very distinctive cafes in the town, the most famous being 7 Sea Bar, located right next to the entrance archway of Baisha Old Town. The second floor is the best spot for photos of architecture with the snow mountain, but it’s incredibly popular. By the afternoon, there were no seats left, so we went elsewhere. We walked towards the snow mountain and entered Miliang Coffee. Although this one doesn’t have as good a viewing angle as 7 Sea Bar, it has a large courtyard, exquisitely arranged, with excellent coffee and desserts – highly recommended!

Near the entrance of Baisha Old Town, there’s also the Baisha Murals attraction. Not far away is the renowned Tinghua Valley, which you can visit on the same day. 🏠 Baisha Old Town 📍 Baisha Town, Yulong Naxi Autonomous County, Lijiang City 🚗 Recommended to drive yourself; there are also buses available.

Summer has arrived, and the flowers in Tinghua Valley are in full bloom. This time in Lijiang, what I looked forward to most was not the old town, but seeing Tinghua Valley beneath Yulong Snow Mountain! Now the entire valley is surrounded by flowers, with blue sky, white clouds, snowy mountain, blossoms, plus adorable Hobbit houses and alpacas – it’s too cute! Tinghua Valley is very large. If you want to photograph all the scenery, it will take most of the day and be quite tiring, so I recommend starting with what interests you most while you still have energy. We wanted to save the Hobbit houses, where many people were, for last, but in the end, we were completely exhausted. Let me summarize a few must-photograph spots:

Hobbit House The classic Hobbit house in Tinghua Valley is always surrounded by wedding photographers. Try to avoid the sunset peak shooting time; usually, between 2 and 3 p.m., there are fewer people. Using a telephoto lens to capture the house and snow mountain is incredibly dreamy. There’s also a small lake in front where you can shoot reflections. All kinds of flowers change with the seasons, and it’s super photogenic – you can spend a long time here alone.

Garden Restaurant When tired from shooting, you can dine at the Garden Restaurant. It mainly serves Western food and afternoon tea, surrounded by snow-capped mountains and flowers with a top-notch environment. The restaurant building itself also offers many photo-worthy angles, such as a circular window with the snow mountain behind, a bird’s nest in tropical style, and more.

Ins-style Bus and Beetle Great spots for travel-style photos. Who wouldn’t want to travel in a cute bus?

Hydrangea and Verbena Flower Sea Next to the Garden Restaurant is a vast sea of hydrangeas – pink, purple, white, green, colorful – set against the distant Yulong Snow Mountain. Any random shot is a masterpiece!

We spent an entire afternoon in Tinghua Valley and still didn’t finish shooting – it’s just so photogenic. Come and be a little princess for a day~ 👉 Lijiang · Tinghua Valley 📍 Address: No. 100 Gouluo Village, Baisha Town, Lijiang City 🚙 Transportation: Drive/take a taxi. From Lijiang Old Town to Tinghua Valley, it’s about a 15-minute drive; from Dali Old Town, about 2 hours.

Within the Yulong Snow Mountain scenic area, this is the only hotel. Every room has a huge balcony facing the snow mountain, offering a view of the entire continuous range – a vantage point and angle that are unmatched. In the morning, you can wake up to the magnificent golden sunrise on the mountain; on clear nights, you can see the starry sky. However, my luck was a bit poor – I didn’t see the golden sunrise or stars during the rainy season in Lijiang, a small regret but also a reason to come back again.

The public areas of the hotel also have excellent views. The platform outside the yoga room features a mirror-like water surface, perfect for photos. Anyone looks beautiful here! Staying here makes visiting Yulong Snow Mountain National Scenic Area super convenient – it’s only 2 kilometers from the visitor center, and you can even walk directly to Blue Moon Valley. However, the weather wasn’t great when we came, plus the hotel was so comfortable, so we just lay in the hotel and watched the snow mountain, haha.

The hotel also offers a wealth of activities. Upon check-in, you’ll receive a schedule with paper-making, tie-dye, scripture copying, tea art classes, lipstick making, leather crafting, yoga, starry night sessions, etc. So even though I didn’t climb the snow mountain, my time in the hotel was fully packed. The most recommended is the starry sky experience, from the lecture to the observation, everything was excellent.

Tips: To stay at Jinmao Puxiu, you must first go to the Jinmao Hyatt Regency Hotel in the city center to obtain the #YulongSnowMountain scenic area entry permit, which also waives the 100-yuan entrance fee per person. Self-driving is recommended. If not self-driving, you can take the Lijiang shuttle bus.

As a mountain hotel, all three meals are eaten on-site, and I had zero expectations but was pleasantly surprised. The highlight was the yak meat hotpot – generous portions and delicious. The across-the-bridge noodles and stir-fried dishes were also very tasty. We also tried the newly launched summer terrace barbecue, watching the sunset over Yulong Snow Mountain while enjoying the barbecue – truly YYDS.

Driving from Lijiang to Lugu Lake is a road that strikes fear. After leaving Lijiang, the Lining 72 Turns, with the raging Nu River below and vertical cliffs beside, is indeed very nerve-racking.

By the time we reached Lugu Lake in the afternoon, such a scene may have slightly disappointed visitors coming from afar. But compared to a few years ago, the management of Lugu Lake has improved a lot. There are clean toilets, and the pig trough boats have fixed fees. Overall, the experience was not bad.

Rowing to the center of the lake, you’ll find a very clear area of water that you can scoop up and drink directly – it’s very well protected. We came specifically to see the water nymph flowers, but actually, by the afternoon, the flowers will fade and break, and they are mainly concentrated near the shore. Taking a boat ride, you won’t see many flowers.

At night, we joined the bonfire party in Daluoshui Village.

The start of this Yunnan trip was to see the water nymph flowers at Lugu Lake. June is the most beautiful season for them, but these flowers have very high requirements for their living environment – they can only survive in first-class water quality, and currently, only Lugu Lake has such beautiful water nymph flowers. They always bloom with the first rays of sunlight and wither after just a few hours. Sometimes heavy rain can knock off the tiny petals, leaving them fragmented. Moreover, the best viewing time is from 8:00 to 10:00 a.m. In the afternoon, strong wind or sun will make the fragile flowers disappear. So, if you want to enjoy the scenery, be sure to pay special attention to the timing.

We got up early and found a few scattered flowers on the lake surface right outside our hotel. A young lady told us that the Lover’s Beach had the best water nymph flowers, so we drove there immediately. Sure enough, arriving at Lover’s Beach around 9 a.m., the water nymph flowers were at their peak – crystal clear like glass flowers, scattered across the water surface, as if they were lively spirits of the lake, dancing with the ripples. Clusters of pure white flowers floated on the deep blue lake. Looking into the distance, the green mountains were like dark eyebrows, and boats came and went. This is the “water nymph flower,” an aquatic plant with the scientific name Ottelia acuminata.

The water nymph flowers usually grow within about two meters of the shore, and you can capture their most beautiful form with a telephoto lens.

We circled the entire Lugu Lake and found that Lover’s Beach had the best display. There are two Lover’s Beaches at Lugu Lake, one in Yunnan and one in Sichuan. Interestingly, both beaches had excellent water nymph flowers, and the water surface was very calm, allowing you to photograph the reflections of the flowers and mountains. We also went to the dock in Lige, where the water nymph flowers were also blooming well, but the wind there was stronger, making it harder to capture reflections.

When we circled to the grass sea, you could find some boats by the water along the road, allowing you to capture the scene of the grass sea with the boats.