Xi'an Bell Tower(Xi'an Bell Tower, Xi'an City Bell and Drum Tower)

Good view of the city from both locations. Bought the combo ticket and was easy to use, just scan to go in at both locations. Booking confirmation was issued almost instantly upon purchase

The ticket price is a bit expensive: 30 yuan per person. However, the bell tower is still worth going up, as there are cultural relics to appreciate. The view is even more beautiful at night when the tower is lit up.

Previously, I had only viewed it from a distance, but this time, climbing the tower gave me a more comprehensive understanding of its history, function, facilities, and architectural structure. Looking around from the top, the entire cityscape unfolded before me—a bustling commercial area with beautiful scenery. It was definitely worthwhile!

It is worth a visit. I go there often. There are Kaiyuan Mall and Bell Tower Hotel, the best hotel in Xi'an, around it. The night view is beautiful at night. You can look at it from different angles. There are also many men and women dressed in Tang style taking photos and checking in here. It is also considered a scenic spot now. You can go to Huimin Street in the basement of the Bell Tower. There are many kinds of snacks and the flow of people is not small. It is especially worth a visit.

The Xi'an Bell Tower is the center of Xi'an City. It is the intersection of four streets in the east, west, south and north. It was built in the 17th year of Hongwu, the reign of Emperor Taizu of the Ming Dynasty. It is one of the largest and best-preserved bell towers in China. The Bell Tower is a loft-style building with a double-eaved three-drop water-style four-cornered spire. It is built on a square base made of blue bricks and white lime. It is 36 meters high and covers an area of ​​1,377 square meters. I have come here many times, and I have a different feeling every time I come. Only with the Bell Tower can there be the history of Xi'an. The surrounding area of ​​the Bell Tower has also been built over the years to form a comprehensive area for sightseeing, shopping, dining and accommodation. In particular, the Bell Tower Hotel and Kaiyuan Mall are already large commercial districts in Xi'an. During holidays, there are crowds of people coming and going here to check in, and they need to clear the personnel to pass smoothly. It is a must-check-in place for tourists to Xi'an.

The Bell Tower and Drum Tower are very nice, but there are so many people during the May Day holiday that the flow of people has to be limited! It is very convenient to take the subway, but it is strongly recommended to go to the bathroom before getting on the subway! Otherwise, it will be difficult to go to the bathroom when you arrive at the Bell Tower/South Gate of the City Wall... You can go to Kaiyuan Shopping Mall first after leaving the subway, go to the observation deck to look at the Bell Tower and Drum Tower from a distance (buy milk tea and go to the bathroom by the way), and then go down to take a closer look You can buy various cultural and creative souvenirs at the Shuyuan Gate next to it. There are Hanfu makeup and travel photography everywhere. It is very convenient and suitable for shopping, but there are so many people! Every place with the words Chang'an/Xi'an is queuing up to take pictures!

This time I took my 80-year-old mother-in-law to Xi'an, and we went to the Drum Tower and Bell Tower on the same day. The Drum Tower that the three of us visited first was warm and gentle, leaving a deep impression. 625 years have passed between the red lacquered beams and pillars, and the free opening policy allows silver-haired tourists to walk freely. The two of us chose the 100-yuan Bell and Drum Tower ticket (120 yuan for single purchase) and climbed the tower with the creaking sound of the wooden stairs. The mottled marks on the drum surface tell the story of forging during the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty, and the whispers of the copper bells on the eaves and the wind seem to carry the echoes of the alarm during the Anti-Japanese War. The beams that were blown off by enemy planes have now been restored to their original state during the repair. Only the old site of the alarm in the southwest corner quietly shows the wrinkles of time to the world.

The Ferryman of Time: The Time and Space Narrative of Xi'an Bell Tower In the coordinate system of the heart of Xi'an, the bell tower is like a ferryman of time, witnessing the vicissitudes of the ancient capital of 13 dynasties with six hundred years of silence. This 36-meter-high wooden structure is not only the largest and most complete architectural specimen among the existing bell towers in China, but also more like a continuously running time machine, weaving the construction wisdom of ancient craftsmen, the evolution code of urban civilization and the spiritual demands of contemporary people into a dialogue network across time and space. 1. Solidified Time and Space Coordinates When Zhu Yuanzhang, the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty, ordered the construction of the bell tower in the 17th year of Hongwu (1384), he might not have expected that this building used for timekeeping would become an eternal city totem. Architect Liang Sicheng once marveled at its structural wisdom of "three drops of water on double eaves": twelve eaves columns on the bottom floor form a corridor, eight golden columns on the middle floor support the octagonal caisson, and four sky-high columns on the top floor support the gilded top, forming a spatial order that rises layer by layer. This vertical upward spatial narrative implicitly coincides with the ancients' cosmic view of "harmony between man and nature", transforming the flow of time into the eternity of space. The ancient rhythm of morning bells and evening drums was once the pulse of time in this city. According to the "Xi'an Prefecture Records" of the Ming Dynasty, the bronze bell in the bell tower weighed 6 tons and the sound of the bell could be heard for thirty miles. When 108 bells pierced the morning mist of Chang'an City, shops removed their door panels, postmen were ready to go, and the whole city woke up in the sound of bronze. This time system constructed by sound has shaped the unique rhythm of life in agricultural civilization. 2. Dialogue Field of Civilizations The architectural language of the bell tower is a code book for dialogues among multiple civilizations. The peacock blue glazed tiles and the blue brick base form a color tension, symbolizing the unrestrained grassland civilization and the implicit Central Plains civilization; the evolution of the crouching beasts on the eaves from 7 to 9 records the changes in the ritual system; the Bagua caisson added in the Qing Dynasty reveals the infiltration of Taoist thought. This phenomenon of cultural accumulation is just as the archaeologist Su Bingqi said: "The bell tower is a three-dimensional yearbook of national integration." In the contemporary context, the bell tower has become a time-travel theater. The arc trajectory of the old man doing Tai Chi in the morning echoes the curve of the bracket; under the fill light of the Internet celebrity live broadcast, the shadow of the mortise and tenon structure projects the cultural confusion of modern youth; in the lens of foreign tourists, the lotus pattern on the bracket and the geometric lines of the glass curtain wall form a surreal collage. The magical realism produced by this spatial juxtaposition is exactly the survival strategy of ancient buildings under the impact of modernity. 3. Eternal spiritual totem The existence of the bell tower subverts the linear view of time. The Yuan Dynasty canal ruins discovered during the subway construction in 2018 form a time-space overlap with the bell tower foundation; the night view of the Tang Dynasty restored by 5G holographic projection technology coexists with modern advertisements on LED large screens in the same field of vision. This phenomenon of time and space folding confirms the time philosophy of philosopher Bergson: "Real time is the penetration of various memories." The bell tower is like a crystal of memory, storing the urban DNA of different eras. Under the impact of globalization, the bell tower interprets the modern transformation of traditional architecture. The night light show transforms the mortise and tenon structure into a data stream, VR technology allows tourists to "walk into" the construction site of the Ming Dynasty woodwork, and the digital bell sound echoes in the cloud through the APP.