The Ancient City faces Erhai Lake to the east ad Cangshan Mountain to the west. The gate tower of the City is grand and the sights here are beautiful. Dali is a magnificent ancient city with a perimeter of 6 kilometers.
City walls in old days
Dali Ancient City was set up in 1383 in the Ming Dynasty. It has a history of more than 600 years. When the city was first set up, it was entirely enclosed by the city walls on four sides and each side had a gate. The City Wall is 8 meters high and 7 meters thick. The interior of the wall was filled with rocks and the surface was bricked over smoothly.
Over the years, the walls on the east and west sides were destroyed. Only the walls on the south and the north were destroyed. In 1983, the local government renovated the wall and the gate tower. On the tower, four Chinese characters are quite striking, meaning "Literary State." Inside the gate, an old street, running from south to north, connects the south gate with the north gate.
Getting around
The four gate towers
The four gate towers in the east, south, west and north are named Chen En, Tong Hai, Mt. Cangshan and An Yuan respectively. There are also 45 battlements and 1560 crenels on the walls. A defensive river was surrounding the city.
Streets and houses
Streets
The streets and avenues in the city now are crisscrossing each other, typical of chessboard pattern. It runs from south to north. On both sides of the street stand houses with green tiles. Inns, tea houses, restaurants, ancient shops and streams of workshops, very bustling and exciting.
Houses
The typical houses for Bai people have three rooms: one major room and two wing-rooms, and a shining wall. Right opposite the major room stands a wall. Every time when the sun is setting, the sunlight shines onto the wall and then reflects into the yard, so the whole yard is bright. So the wall is called "shining wall". In order to avoid the gales from the west, the major rooms of most families sit in the west and face the east.
Another characteristic of the houses is that in all the four directions of a yard are rooms. In the four joints there are four small dooryards. Together with the bigger dooryard in the center of the yard, there are five dooryards altogether.
Decoration is another feature of houses for Bai people. They pay much attention to the gate and the tower. Upturned eaves, up-holding corners, arches and colourful pictures are all characteristics of their houses. Most of their windows, doors and shining walls are decorated with woodcarving of Jianchuan, marbles, coloured drawings or patterns, and washes. The technics is delicate, and the style is elegant. All these make the houses of Bai people one of the best among the houses in southwest China.
Garden plant
The residents all like to plant trees and flowers. There are garden in every house. The famous Dali camellia, azalea and orchids are competing to show their beauty, blooming against snow on Mt. Cangshan. Red flowers and green grass are coming out from wall, making up flowers streets. A saying goes like this: "There is a well in every three families, and several pots of flowers in every family." Most families have a flower bed in the yard where grow all kinds of flowers like camellia.
Streams
Streams from Mt. Cangshan come into the city, going across the streets and visiting every family with their happy sound and sweet taste, running eastwards to Lake Erhai. The whole city looks fresh and wet, without any dust.
Festival used to be celebrated by Bai people
On every Feb. 14th according to the lunar calendar, it is the Flower Festival. Every family puts all its potted plants in front of the house to make a "flower hill". This attracts many visitors from all directions.
For their love for flowers, local people name their girls after the names of flowers. "Golden Flower" is a good name for local Bai girls, and Dali is also called the "Hometown to Golden Flowers".
Souvenirs suggest to buy
The shops here mainly sell some locally-made handicraft articles: marble products, straw weaving wares, embroideries, wax printing clothes and other ornaments. Small retailers also sell some antiques, ancient paintings, old coins and silver wares.
Marble
The marble has exquisite texture and unique veins. It is colourful and glitters translucently. The development and utilization of marbles began in the Kingdom of Nanzhao in as early as Tang Dynasty. All kinds of craftworks made from marbles are available in these shops and booths such as screens, brush pots and vases.
A right place for foreigners to stay
Dali Ancient City is widely acknowledged as "Backpackers' Paradise" in China. Foreign visitors like to stay in Dali ancient city. Some of them live there for months or even years, to observe and study the fascinating culture of Bai nationality.
In the so - called "Yangren Street (freigner's street) "in the heart of ancient city where is always full of foreign visitors, there are several dozens of cafes, western style restaurants, and clothes shops offering services to foreign guests. And it seems that every one of local Dali Bai people in the Yangren Street is a multi linguist.
Something needs to pay attention to
The ancient city is a walk-only place free of any vehicel turmoil.