How to Visit Du Fu Thatched Cottage in Chengdu (Tips, Photos & Map)

Plan your Chengdu tour? Basically Du Fu Thatched Cottage (杜甫草堂 in Chinese ) will be on the top of your Chengdu bucket list as a first time visitor to the mega city in the southwest inland China.

Du Fu - the famous poet

Du Fu was a famous poet (712－770) in Tang Dynasty ( 618 – 907 ). In 759 Du Fu and his family fled to Chengdu to keep from the An-Shi Rebellion breaking out in 758. With the help of his friends, he built a straw-roofed hut near the Flower Rinsing Creek and lived there for over four years.

During his four years in Chengdu, He wrote 240 poems that are still popular till today in China. Among them: “My Thatched Hut was torn apart by Autumn Wind” and “The Prime Minister of Shu”. The “thatched Cottage” period was the prime time of Du Fu’s creativity.

Du Fu Thatched Cottage

After Du Fu left Chengdu, his thatched cottage was dilapidated. Wei Zhuang, a poet in the Five Dynasties (907 – 960), reconstructed the cottage on the original site in honor of Du Fu. The cottage was preserved and renovated through Song, Yuan Ming and Qing dynasties.

Today the cottage has been turned into a museum and a park, a popular destination for Du Fu enthusiasts around the world to pay tribute to the great poet. In 1961, the Du Fu Thatched House was listed as a National Heritage site.

How to get there

How to visit Du Fu Thatched Cottage

Du fu Thatched Cottage has three main gates – front gate, south gate and north. I suggest entering the south gate, and exit from north gate.

At the entrance of the garden path stands a screen wall with a hand writing “Thatched Cottage”. In 1958, Ma Zedong took a photo here, hence the representative tourist attraction.

Flowery Path. In Du Fu’s Peom, “Flowery path has never been cleared for the visit of a guest”.

With years' development, today’s Du Fu Cottage area is much larger, more like a huge park teemd with leafy bamboo, streams, creeks, pavilions, ponds, rockeries, a showcase of Chinese traditional culture, particularly Chinese gardening.

Hassle-free Chengdu Guided Tours

If you don’t want to go the do-it-yourself route and prefer the hassle-free escorted tours, here are some options for Chengdu and Sichuan guided tours:

Further Readings

Any questions, just drop a line.