BJ-T10: Cuandixia Village & Shuangshitou Village

Do you want to know how traditional cottages of China look like? If so, we recommend you to follow this itinerary to visit the Cuandixia Village and Shuangshitou Village,  two ancient villages of Ming and Qing Dynasties (1368 - 1911) located to the west of downtown Beijing to seek some clues.

 It is a guided tour mostly by eco-friendly public transport. If you need a private car, feel free to contact our travel consultants to arrange it for you.

Cuandixia Village is reputed as the "Potala Palace in Beijing" because all the houses are located on a gentle slope of a mountain, layer upon layer, just like the soaring Potala Palace in Tibet. As it is far from the downtown, it has not been touched by modern constructions yet. 

Walk on the old pavements and view the traditional hillside courtyards, the old Beijing people's life will come into your mind. These well-preserved old courtyards with exquisite decorations are highlights on the tour.

Besides, there are also ancient temples where local people pray for prosperity, health, and peace, and traits of the Second World War remained in the village such as ruins of local people's residences and sites of outposts during the war.

 Tip: During the visit, the guide will leave you some time to have lunch. Some farmhouses there offer food to tourists and the dishes are generally made of local ingredients. They may not be delicate or good-looking, but full of the original flavor of the ingredients. 

How to Get There 

It is quite a long travel. In the morning, the guide will pick you up from your hotel in downtown and escort you there, so you don’t need to worry a lot. Just be patient. The whole trip by public transport will take around 3 hours.

→ At first, the guide will escort you to Pingguoyuan subway station on line 6 and line S1. 
→ Transfer to bus no. M22 to its terminus, Zhaitang Gongjiaochang (Zhaitang Bus Station). This bus ride will take around two hours. Besides, the bus serves with an interval of about 50 minutes. Please note there might be a big crowd waiting for bus M22 there, especially on weekends or vacations.
→ On arrival, the guide will hail a taxi or a private car via car-hailing apps and accompany you to Cuandixia Village, taking 15 minutes or so.

If you want to travel there on your own, hiring a taxi from downtown will be more convenient and easy, taking around 2-2.5 hours and costing CNY 250-300.

Shuangshitou means two rocks in Chinese, and it is so named because there are two large guardian boulders standing quietly at the entrance of the village. In particular, one of them is so large with an extraordinary residence consisting three rooms built upon it. With hundreds of years' history, this hidden village contains many buildings, walls, streets and roads made up with grotesque stones.

How to Get There

It is about 2.4 kilometers (1.5 miles) away from Cuandixia. The guide will hire a taxi or book a car via one of these car-hailing apps and accompany you there.

→ The guide will escort you back to Zhaitang Gongjiaochang from Shuangshitou Village by car hailed on apps. 
→ Then take bus no. M22 back to Pingguoyuan subway station. The bus also runs every 50 minutes or so for the return trip. 
→ At last, send you back to your hotel by subway or city bus.