Huanhuaxi Park

The big free park outside Du Fu Cottage's north gate (444 mu, billed at its 2003 opening as the largest free park inside the Second Ring), laid out in 2003 around a lake (Canglang), a wooded hill (Wanshu) and an egret island (Bailuzhou), with the 'Poetry Avenue' of engraved verses running down its spine and the creek that gave the poet his best lines along its edge. Open early to late (the listings say 6:00-22:00), no gate procedure, and the Sichuan Museum on its north-east corner. It is the 'walk after the poems' — and, for anyone who will not pay ¥50 for the cottage, the free version of the same landscape.