Which Museum With Half a Day?

The one worth leaving the city for (the bronze masks, the 2.6 m standing figure and the 4 m sacred tree are unlike anything in the city museums), and the one that is not a half-day. Do not go without a ticket: they drop at 20:00 five days ahead and at peak are gone in seconds, and the foreign-passport route is an emailed form that wants a working day. Do not go in July-August or a holiday expecting a quiet daytime hall; take the evening ticket from 17:00 instead, which the museum itself recommends. The traps: three stations with 'Guanghan' or 'Sanxingdui' in the name on three lines — Sanxingdui station on the Chuanqing line is the one with the shuttle; the dig itself is not open, you see the hall and the park; and the town around it is not the reason to come. Compared with the three in the city: if you can only spare half a day, the Chengdu Museum on Tianfu Square is the one to pick. For first-timers who can give the ancient-Shu bronzes a full day and book five days ahead; anyone who came to Chengdu for Sanxingdui specifically.

Big, free and worth its two hours (for the Dunhuang copies and the Han bricks, not for a general 'Sichuan' overview), and the natural indoor stop between Du Fu Cottage and Huanhuaxi Park. The booking is a WeChat official account built on Chinese-ID logic, but the museum's own rules give the passport holder a way in that the other free museum does not: a foreign visitor who cannot complete the online booking without a Chinese phone number registers at the hall entrance with a passport (rule 3 of the booking notice). Book if you can, go to the door if you cannot — early on a weekend, since the desk does not exempt you from the 10,000 daily cap; and do not book what you will not use, one no-show and you are locked out for 30 days. Compared with the Chengdu Museum: the same free two hours, and the city museum has the English email booking and the evening hours, but only the Sichuan Museum has published a walk-up path for passports; compared with Sanxingdui: this is the ancient-Sichuan museum you can reach by metro. For visitors pairing it with Du Fu Cottage — a WeChat slot if you can get one, a passport at the entrance desk if you cannot; anyone who wants Dunhuang without going to Gansu.

The half-day answer: in the middle of town, free, five floors of Chengdu from the Bronze Age to the 20th century with the country's largest shadow-puppet collection, and the only one of the four whose booking system publishes a no-Chinese-phone route — an English interface that takes an email. Do not come to the door without a slot: under-60s have no walk-up queue, and weekend slots vanish at release, so book 14 days out. Do not aim for 10:00-12:00 or 14:00-16:00 — the museum names them as its peaks; a Friday or Saturday evening to 20:30 is the same museum with the day's crowd gone. The trap is the ID question: the email route is published, the passport-number question is not, so carry the passport you booked with. Compared with the Sichuan Museum: the same free two hours, but here the booking is in English; compared with Sanxingdui: nothing here matches the masks, but nothing here costs you a day either. For first-timers booking with a passport and an email; anyone with half a day; families and evening people on a Friday or Saturday.

Still closed: the whole site (park, excavation hall, exhibition hall) shut on 5 December 2025 and is due back on 30 April 2027, and the museum's own hours page says so in place of opening times. Do not cross town to it, and do not let a listing that still shows ¥70 and Tuesday-Sunday hours change your mind; those are pre-closure figures and none of them should be assumed to survive the reopening. The Sun-Bird gold disc that is the city's emblem is inside this locked building; the ancient-Shu story it tells is at Sanxingdui, 40 km north, until then. Set a reminder for late April 2027 and treat hours, price and booking as new when it reopens. For nobody this year; put it on the list for a return trip after May 2027.