Sanxingdui and Guanghan (day trip)
The bronze-age Shu kingdom's masks and sacred trees in the 2023 new hall — the only ancient-Shu museum open while Jinsha is shut — plus the working restoration hall, the closed dig outside, and the two county-town parks that fill the hour before the train.
For the one thing in the Chengdu region you cannot see anywhere else: the bronze masks, the giant standing figure and the sacred trees of a 3,000-year-old kingdom that left no texts, shown since July 2023 in the new Sanxingdui hall — and, with Jinsha closed until 30 April 2027, the only ancient-Shu museum open at all. It is a day, not a half-day: 40 km north-east in Guanghan, Deyang. Three ways in without a car: the Chuanqing line from Chengdu East to Sanxingdui station in 18 minutes (from ¥20 at the 2023 opening) with a museum shuttle at the station, or the Xi'an-Chengdu line to Guanghan North in about 20 minutes and bus 13 to the door; or the 'scenic-spot direct bus' from Chunxi Road, Wuhou Shrine, Kuanzhai or the Panda Base, leaving around 10:00-10:30 and returning 15:30 (platform listing, no price published). Tickets are real-name, ¥72, released at 20:00 five days ahead and gone within minutes in season; foreign passports book by an emailed form and pay at the ticket office, or exchange at the ticket centre. The plan we would follow: 20:00 five nights before, buy the ticket; morning train, museum 9:00-13:00 including the restoration hall, lunch in the underground walkway or Guanghan town, Fanghu Park's Confucian temple for the hour before the train back from Guanghan North.
'Sanxingdui and Jinsha in one day', the classic pairing, is void until May 2027; there is only one museum now, and it is the crowded one. The ticket is the trap: real-name, five-day release, sold out in minutes on holidays, no authorised resale, and a passport is a special case handled by email or at a window. Three railway stations carry the site's or the town's name: Sanxingdui (Chuanqing line), Guanghan North (Xi'an-Chengdu HSR) and old Guanghan (conventional). None is within walking distance of the museum, and the future S11 'Sanxingdui' station is a construction site until about 2029. The site itself (the mounds, the walls, Moon Bay) has no published visitor access and the dig is closed; the museum park is what you get. Guanghan town offers a Tang lake and a Song temple, not a second sight. The website's Chinese hours line still showed the summer 20:00 closing in September; check the notice, not the banner.
Places here
3 Sanxingdui Conservation and Restoration Hall
Must-seeExperienceThe building in the museum park where the pit finds are actually being put back together, glass-walled so visitors watch: opened December 2021 as, in the museum's words, the country's first open conservation-and-restoration hall. It is 'Hall 3' on the museum's own signage, keeps shorter hours than the main hall (9:00-18:00) and is excluded from the evening extension — so on a summer or holiday evening ticket you get an hour here at most. There is no separate ticket; it is part of the Sanxingdui visit.
4 Sanxingdui Museum (New Hall)
Must-seeMuseumThe bronze masks, the 2.6 m standing figure and the 4 m 'sacred tree' from the sacrificial pits of a Bronze Age city nobody had written down — 3,000-year-old Shu, dug up at Sanxingdui in 1986 and again from 2019 — shown since July 2023 in a 54,400 m² new hall that the museum itself calls the largest single site-museum building in south-west China: 1,500-plus objects across three galleries and an interactive hall. With Jinsha closed until 30 April 2027 this is the only ancient-Shu museum open, and it is 40 km from the city: an 18-minute train from Chengdu East to Sanxingdui station, or 20 minutes to Guanghan North, then a bus. Real-name, ¥72, tickets released five days ahead at 20:00 each evening, open every day but New Year's Eve; foreign passports book by email form or exchange at the ticket centre.
1 Fanghu Park and Guanghan Confucian Temple
GardenOld Guanghan's park: a lake dug in the 8th century by Fang Guan, the Tang chancellor exiled here as prefect, with the Song-founded Guanghan Confucian Temple (a provincial protected site) inside the grounds and, in a pavilion, a stone 'sacred edict' stele left by the rebel Zhang Xianzhong in the 1640s. Free, no gate procedure, in the middle of the county town 7 km east of the museum — the one place in Guanghan that is older than the museum and not about Sanxingdui. Hours are not published; platforms list it as free with 'ask the park' for times.
2 Jinyan Lake Park
GardenGuanghan's lakeside park on the Yazi river at the north edge of town, between the old station and Guanghan North: a gourd-shaped lake with a boardwalk, boats, a children's funfair and a round 'Jinyan palace' folly. Free and open all day according to the platforms, and once a year — the 16th day of the first lunar month — the site of the Baobao festival, when families come to pick a godparent for their child and the park charges a gate fee for the day. Two kilometres from Guanghan North station, so it is the nearest green space to the train home.
5 Sanxingdui Site (National Archaeological Site Park)
Status unclearLandmarkThe ground itself: 12 km² on the south bank of the Yazi river west of the museum, with a 3.6 km² walled city inside it — the west wall, the 'Moon Bay' terrace of Yanjia courtyard where the 1927 jades came out, and the fenced sacrificial-pit zone with its archaeological station. It has been a national archaeological site park since the first list in 2010 and is on China's World Heritage tentative list. The name 'Sanxingdui' literally refers to the three mounds. What a visitor can walk into is not published: the museum's own FAQ says the excavation site is 'not yet open', a platform listing copies the museum's hours and adds that 'part of the archaeological excavation area is not open to visitors', and no gate, price or path is stated anywhere official.