Lijiang Ancient Town is huge that we only explored the Mufu Palace (木府) and the Giant Water Wheels (大水车) sections the last few days. Since we already visited the nearby old towns, we had an entire day just to explore more of Lijiang Ancient Town. We started off walking from our hotel toward Wuyi Street (五一街). It was quiet and peaceful in the early morning, no one in the side streets:

The bougainvillea flowers lined the street, it was very beautiful.

The wall of golden lanterns lit up by the sunray:

Although Lijiang Ancient Town is commercialized and many traditional houses have been converted to homestays, cafes, and shops, there are still some residential houses in the back alleys.

We just followed signs to Wuyi Street (五一街) and eventually got out to the busy street filled with shops.

We stumbled upon an ancient city gate:

More shops….see on the right side of the shop piled up with packages? Most shops offer free shipping if you spend over a certain amount, it made it super convenient for domestic tourists not needing to carry souvenirs home or worry about luggage space!

How cool is that rooftop filled with plant pots?

Another umbrella street?

Then, we followed the sign toward the big stone bridge (大石桥). The cafes and shops here are super cute with little bridges to go in their shops:

Finally, the stone bridge (大石桥), it doesn’t look as impressive as its name:

The intersection has lots of bars and coffee shops:

Next, we followed the signs toward Square Street (四方街), a lot busier in this area:

We came across this street with lots of colorful lanterns!

Lijiang has a lot of cats too, they are everywhere!

The ancient town is so beautiful in every corner! The street looked like travel back to the ancient time!

It was time for lunch so we turned back to Square Street (四方街) to try another famous “over the bridge” rice noodle chain called 云桥客. We were seated upstairs with a great view overlooking the busy square below:

云桥客’s rice noodles are good too; their soup broth is tasty and flavorful but if I have to pick one, I prefer 渣渣米线.

After the yummy lunch, we enjoyed the local performances in the square.

We explore this direction the other day which headed to the Giant Water Wheels so we took the opposite route.

Up the hill….

This area is more residential!

Somehow, we ended up here…which has the palace architecture:

We took plenty of pictures with this picturesque backdrop!

We continued on to the Three Wells (三眼井)…

Here it is. It was much smaller than I expected. The name came from three tiers of well….the top well is for drinking, the middle one is for washing food like vegetables and fruits, and the bottom well is for washing clothes and cleaning as the water flows from top to bottom.

We took a few photos and left….walking back to Mufu Palace (木府) direction.

The kids saw a cute ice cream shop, so we stopped for treats!

We found a closed shop to sit down so they can finish their ice cream and bar.

I tried out their local yogurt; it tasted good with a strong milk flavor! The bottle makes a great souvenir too!

After that, we walked back to our hotel to take a break before we head out for dinner. For dinner, I searched another Cantonese restaurant – 梁厨 lol Jason’s last name. The restaurant is located on the other side of the ancient town that we haven’t even explored yet! However, the shops here sell the same thing as well 😛

There is the restaurant at the end of the road, and no other guests in there…urg a bad sign?

There is like only 6 tables inside the restaurant…a small room. We ordered a soup, it was not bad!

The black pepper beef was flavorful but a little bit too salty.

The egg tofu was good for our kids, they loved fried egg tofu.

The steamed fish was fresh but not as good as the one we had at Yuhu Village (玉湖村).

When we finished dinner, we were still the only guests there…..but their food was okay, not tourist trap or anything like that! After dinner, we walked back to the hotel so the kids can spend some time playing in the indoor playground.

It was a great relaxing day exploring Lijiang Ancient Town! Of all the ancient towns we visited in Yunnan, Lijiang’s is the most picturesque and my favorite. I love that the whole town is filled with beautiful ancient-style houses decorated with flowers, plants, and lanterns. Every corner and every street is picture-perfect! It is big enough that you can spend more than a day exploring different sections of the town. Mufu Palace is a must, that alone you can spent a few hours there. Lijiang Ancient Town is also a great base to do daytrips to nearby ancient towns and sightseeing. I highly recommend Lijiang and the Yunnan region, it’s my favorite region of China so far!