Cuandixia

Chinese Character from Cuandixia
Cuandixia is a small village of old stone cottages about 60 miles from Beijing. It has been turned into a tourist attraction - you pay (20 yuan) to enter the village, and almost every house either is a little shop selling souvenirs, or will put visitors up overnight or serve meals. This sounds dreadful, but the village is actually very pleasant to visit - it does not have the Disneyland feel of artificial reconstruction that characterizes many of the historic attractions in China.

We spent several hours wandering around the narrow passageways and looking at the cottages, and ended up having lunch by ourselves in one of the homes. Many of the homes (including the one where we had lunch) are constructed as four tiny buildings around a central courtyard - I couldn't tell if this was for a single family or more.


Aerial View


Fields and Village


Rooftops


Courtyard Home


Precarious


Cute Dog


Colorful Screens


Doorway and Cottages