One More Ancient Site After the Army?
Choose the one ancient site worth adding after the Terracotta Army: Lishan Garden, Hanyangling or Daming Palace. They belong to different eras and require very different travel and energy, so remaining daylight matters more than another famous name.
The short answer
Take the free shuttle to Lishan Garden — it is in the ticket you hold, the chariots are the finest single objects of the day, and it stays quiet while Pit 1 peaks. Do not start it after 16:30, and ask the driver about the last bus back.
Hanyangling, and pair it with the History Museum's Qin-Han branch on the same Line 14 corridor for a Qin-Han day: book the night before with your passport number (Ctrip if WeChat defeats you), taxi from the north of the city, underground hall first. Any weekday is quiet.
Daming Palace: metro to the Danfeng Gate, ticket at the office, two hours for gate, museum and terrace — an hour before the 18:30 last entry for the light — then the free park. It is Tang, not Qin-Han; if the Han is the point and you have a bike, Weiyang Palace's free fields are 8 km west.
Hanyangling's underground hall has ramps, lifts and a level glass floor and is cool and dim; Lishan Garden is flat with a ¥15 cart to the mound, but the shuttle is a coach with a step up; Daming Palace is flat and enormous with no shade on the lawns and carts inside the core — 2 km from gate to north wall, so keep to the core. Weiyang Palace has neither water nor shade.
Daming Palace has a ticket office at the Danfeng Gate and a free outer park that needs nothing; Weiyang Palace needs nothing at all; the Qin-Han branch of the History Museum admits walk-ins on a passport by its own rules. Hanyangling's notice describes no window — do not arrive without the QR code; Lishan Garden needs the Army ticket you already booked.
Hanyangling on any weekday — the underground hall rarely queues even in cherry-blossom and ginkgo seasons; Lishan Garden at Pit 1's 14:00-16:00 peak; Daming Palace's core on a weekday, but not the second Wednesday (residents' free day) and not spring flower or kite weekends; Weiyang Palace's 4.8 km² are shared with dog-walkers except at Qingming rapeseed and autumn pink muhly.
Hanyangling is a 20-minute stop on the airport road on the way in; the Qin-Han branch is 666 m from Line 14's Qingong station on the airport line. Neither is a detour from the old town, both are on the way.
Side by sideEach cell ends with the date of the notice it was checked against
Swipe sideways; the first column stays put
Hanyangling
汉阳陵- Getting there
- On the airport road north of the Wei River, 40 km from the old town, no metro: a taxi from the north of the city is the practical answer, or a 20-minute stop on the way in from the airport. Platform listings say Metro Line 2 to Shitushuguan (City Library), Exit D, then the You 4 tourist bus; the museum's own pages give only driving routes and recommend the airport-road (east) entrance — search Amap for 汉景帝阳陵博物院 with 东门 / 南门 / 北门 · 2026-09-02
- Ticket (this season)
- ¥70 adult this season (March-November), students half; ¥55 December-February — seasons differ (museum notice). English guiding ¥100 per group per venue, audio guide ¥20 plus ¥100 deposit · 2026-09-02
- Booking & passport
- 'Individual real-name online booking' on the WeChat official accounts 汉景帝阳陵博物院 / 汉阳陵国家考古遗址公园 or Ctrip / Meituan; 'enter with your own valid ID and the booking QR code' — the notice names ID cards and does not mention a passport or a ticket window, so book with the passport number before you go (Ctrip's international app if WeChat is not an option) and bring the original; ask 029-62657569 if in doubt · 2026-09-02
- Closed days
- None — 'open all year without a break' (museum notice). This season 8:30-18:30 with entry to 17:00; winter 8:30-18:00, entry to 16:30 — seasons differ. Summer extended hours ended 1 September 2026 · 2026-09-02
- How long
- An hour in the underground hall — glass walkways over the emperor's outer burial pits with the small clay figures in situ, dim and cool — and an hour in the archaeological museum; the park's south-gate site and temple site are a longer walk for the committed (a shuttle has run inside, ask at the gate). Ramps, lifts and a level glass floor in the hall · 2026-09-11
- Same day as the Army?
- No: the Terracotta Army is 60 km the other way and 'does not combine'. Its day is the Qin-Han branch of the History Museum, also north of the river on the Line 14 corridor — or the airport. Do the underground hall first, while the tour buses are at the Army · 2026-09-11
- Best for
- Anyone who has seen the Army and wants the quieter, closer, darker, more archaeological version; a separate half-day or the airport stop
Lishan Garden & the bronze chariots
丽山园 · 铜车马Open the place →- Getting there
- Inside the Terracotta Army day: Qinling Rd, Lintong, 2 km west of the pits — arrive by the museum's free shuttle from the pits, whose stop is inside the ticketed area; the shuttle runs both ways but no timetable is published, so ask the driver about the last bus back. Signed as 丽山园 (a garden), not as a museum · 2026-09-11
- Ticket (this season)
- No separate ticket: included in the Terracotta Army ticket, which covers both sites and the free shuttle. Electric cart inside the garden ¥15 a head from just inside the ticket gate (official) — otherwise the mound is a long flat walk · 2023-04-21
- Booking & passport
- No separate booking: the real-name Terracotta Army ticket (bmy.com.cn / WeChat) is the ticket, tied to the passport used to book, and the official page lists the passport by name among the documents checked at the gate — the same check as at the pits · 2026-09-11
- Closed days
- None published; daily with the pits — the museum's notices give only the daily sales window. Ticket checks end 17:00 at both sites (winter 16:30), closing at 19:00 from 24 August 2026 — seasons differ; do not start the garden after 16:30 · 2023-05-04
- How long
- About 1.5 hours by the museum's own estimate: the bronze chariot museum first — the two half-size chariots found in 1980 twenty metres from the mound, shown here since 2021 — then the 50-odd-metre grassed mound you walk around and beside, not up. Flat paths; the shuttle is a coach with a step up · 2026-09-11
- Same day as the Army?
- It is the same day and the same ticket — the second half most tour groups skip. If you booked a morning slot and arrive after lunch on a weekend, do the garden first while Pit 1 has its 14:00-16:00 peak (our entry's own pacing); the garden stays quiet even when Pit 1 is packed · 2026-09-11
- Best for
- Everyone already at the pits with 1.5 hours left before the 17:00 check; anyone who would rather see the emperor's chariots than a fourth angle on Pit 1
Daming Palace (Tang)
大明宫遗址公园（唐）- Getting there
- North of the railway station, metro at the gate — but two stations, two gates: Line 2/4 Daminggong or Line 4 Xi'an Railway Station for the Danfeng Gate on the south side (the ticketed core); Line 2 Daminggong West is the west edge of the free park, a 20-minute walk from the gate. Address for a driver: 585 Ziqiang East Rd · 2026-02-25
- Ticket (this season)
- Core zone about ¥60, students ¥30 (platform listings; no park page with the price could be read); the outer park (lawns, the Taiye lake, the palace-wall line) is free · 2026-09-11
- Booking & passport
- Core-zone tickets on the WeChat official account 大明宫国家遗址公园 (门票预订 → 考古套票) or at the Danfeng Gate ticket office — the only one of the three with a window; the pages we read do not describe full-price sales as real-name, and say nothing about passports. The residents' free day is ID-restricted and not a visitor discount · 2026-01-12
- Closed days
- None; the second Wednesday of each month (8:30-17:00) is a free day for Xi'an residents and residence-permit holders, booked the day before. This season (15 April-15 October) the core sells to 17:30, admits to 18:30 and closes at 19:00; winter 18:00 — seasons differ (platform repost of park hours). Outer park 6:00-22:30 in summer · 2026-09-11
- How long
- Two hours with the ticket for the Danfeng Gate (a 2010 shell over the Tang gate's rammed earth, with the site museum), the Hanyuan Hall terrace and the central palace sites — or a free evening walk. Flat and enormous: 2 km from the Danfeng Gate to the north wall, sightseeing carts inside the core (platform), no shade on the lawns · 2026-09-11
- Same day as the Army?
- Not on the same trip — it is in the city, north of the railway station, and it is a different dynasty: the Tang palace footprint, not a Qin-Han site. Its natural slot is a late afternoon, an hour before the 18:30 last entry, when the terrace has the light and the free park is where the neighbourhood walks · 2026-09-11
- Best for
- The no-booking evening: anyone who wants scale and quiet at the price of a gate ticket, and can see a palace in a plan
| Compare | Hanyangling | Lishan Garden & the bronze chariots | Daming Palace (Tang) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Getting there | On the airport road north of the Wei River, 40 km from the old town, no metro: a taxi from the north of the city is the practical answer, or a 20-minute stop on the way in from the airport. Platform listings say Metro Line 2 to Shitushuguan (City Library), Exit D, then the You 4 tourist bus; the museum's own pages give only driving routes and recommend the airport-road (east) entrance — search Amap for 汉景帝阳陵博物院 with 东门 / 南门 / 北门 · 2026-09-02 | Inside the Terracotta Army day: Qinling Rd, Lintong, 2 km west of the pits — arrive by the museum's free shuttle from the pits, whose stop is inside the ticketed area; the shuttle runs both ways but no timetable is published, so ask the driver about the last bus back. Signed as 丽山园 (a garden), not as a museum · 2026-09-11 | North of the railway station, metro at the gate — but two stations, two gates: Line 2/4 Daminggong or Line 4 Xi'an Railway Station for the Danfeng Gate on the south side (the ticketed core); Line 2 Daminggong West is the west edge of the free park, a 20-minute walk from the gate. Address for a driver: 585 Ziqiang East Rd · 2026-02-25 |
| Ticket (this season) | ¥70 adult this season (March-November), students half; ¥55 December-February — seasons differ (museum notice). English guiding ¥100 per group per venue, audio guide ¥20 plus ¥100 deposit · 2026-09-02 | No separate ticket: included in the Terracotta Army ticket, which covers both sites and the free shuttle. Electric cart inside the garden ¥15 a head from just inside the ticket gate (official) — otherwise the mound is a long flat walk · 2023-04-21 | Core zone about ¥60, students ¥30 (platform listings; no park page with the price could be read); the outer park (lawns, the Taiye lake, the palace-wall line) is free · 2026-09-11 |
| Booking & passport | 'Individual real-name online booking' on the WeChat official accounts 汉景帝阳陵博物院 / 汉阳陵国家考古遗址公园 or Ctrip / Meituan; 'enter with your own valid ID and the booking QR code' — the notice names ID cards and does not mention a passport or a ticket window, so book with the passport number before you go (Ctrip's international app if WeChat is not an option) and bring the original; ask 029-62657569 if in doubt · 2026-09-02 | No separate booking: the real-name Terracotta Army ticket (bmy.com.cn / WeChat) is the ticket, tied to the passport used to book, and the official page lists the passport by name among the documents checked at the gate — the same check as at the pits · 2026-09-11 | Core-zone tickets on the WeChat official account 大明宫国家遗址公园 (门票预订 → 考古套票) or at the Danfeng Gate ticket office — the only one of the three with a window; the pages we read do not describe full-price sales as real-name, and say nothing about passports. The residents' free day is ID-restricted and not a visitor discount · 2026-01-12 |
| Closed days | None — 'open all year without a break' (museum notice). This season 8:30-18:30 with entry to 17:00; winter 8:30-18:00, entry to 16:30 — seasons differ. Summer extended hours ended 1 September 2026 · 2026-09-02 | None published; daily with the pits — the museum's notices give only the daily sales window. Ticket checks end 17:00 at both sites (winter 16:30), closing at 19:00 from 24 August 2026 — seasons differ; do not start the garden after 16:30 · 2023-05-04 | None; the second Wednesday of each month (8:30-17:00) is a free day for Xi'an residents and residence-permit holders, booked the day before. This season (15 April-15 October) the core sells to 17:30, admits to 18:30 and closes at 19:00; winter 18:00 — seasons differ (platform repost of park hours). Outer park 6:00-22:30 in summer · 2026-09-11 |
| How long | An hour in the underground hall — glass walkways over the emperor's outer burial pits with the small clay figures in situ, dim and cool — and an hour in the archaeological museum; the park's south-gate site and temple site are a longer walk for the committed (a shuttle has run inside, ask at the gate). Ramps, lifts and a level glass floor in the hall · 2026-09-11 | About 1.5 hours by the museum's own estimate: the bronze chariot museum first — the two half-size chariots found in 1980 twenty metres from the mound, shown here since 2021 — then the 50-odd-metre grassed mound you walk around and beside, not up. Flat paths; the shuttle is a coach with a step up · 2026-09-11 | Two hours with the ticket for the Danfeng Gate (a 2010 shell over the Tang gate's rammed earth, with the site museum), the Hanyuan Hall terrace and the central palace sites — or a free evening walk. Flat and enormous: 2 km from the Danfeng Gate to the north wall, sightseeing carts inside the core (platform), no shade on the lawns · 2026-09-11 |
| Same day as the Army? | No: the Terracotta Army is 60 km the other way and 'does not combine'. Its day is the Qin-Han branch of the History Museum, also north of the river on the Line 14 corridor — or the airport. Do the underground hall first, while the tour buses are at the Army · 2026-09-11 | It is the same day and the same ticket — the second half most tour groups skip. If you booked a morning slot and arrive after lunch on a weekend, do the garden first while Pit 1 has its 14:00-16:00 peak (our entry's own pacing); the garden stays quiet even when Pit 1 is packed · 2026-09-11 | Not on the same trip — it is in the city, north of the railway station, and it is a different dynasty: the Tang palace footprint, not a Qin-Han site. Its natural slot is a late afternoon, an hour before the 18:30 last entry, when the terrace has the light and the free park is where the neighbourhood walks · 2026-09-11 |
| Best for | Anyone who has seen the Army and wants the quieter, closer, darker, more archaeological version; a separate half-day or the airport stop | Everyone already at the pits with 1.5 hours left before the 17:00 check; anyone who would rather see the emperor's chariots than a fourth angle on Pit 1 | The no-booking evening: anyone who wants scale and quiet at the price of a gate ticket, and can see a palace in a plan |
Weiyang Palace (Han Chang'an City)：The Han capital's main palace preserved as 4.8 km² of open, unshaded field 8 km west of Daming Palace: earth mounds, panels, wind — free, unfenced, 6:00-22:00, no booking, and almost nobody. For anyone who already cares about the Han, with a bike and an afternoon (Metro Line 1 Zaohe is a long walk away — a taxi to the west gate is the practical way); for anyone else, an hour here is an hour of walking.
Hanyuan Hall terrace：The part of Daming Palace worth the ticket: the re-faced 15 m rammed-earth platform of the Tang throne hall, 600 m north of the Danfeng Gate, the only vantage point that shows how big the palace was. Give it the last hour before the core zone's 18:30 last entry — low sun, the gate lit to the south, nobody on the steps; no shade on top, so not at noon.
Shaanxi History Museum, Qin-Han Branch：Not a site but the museum of the same two dynasties, free and walk-in with a passport by its own rules, on the same Line 14 corridor as Hanyangling — Qin-Han history in the morning, the Han tomb pits in the afternoon. Which museum to do first is its own page — see 'Which Museum First?' (museum-which-first). → See “Which Museum First?”
One by one
Hanyangling
汉阳陵The answer to 'is there a quieter Terracotta Army': thousands of small, naked, armless figures under your feet, in situ, in a hall that rarely queues on any weekday. Do not come expecting the big army — it is different, and that is the point. Do not treat it as a detour from the centre: 40 km, no metro, and the museum publishes only driving routes. Take a taxi from the north of the city, do it from the airport, or make it the second half of a Qin-Han day with the History Museum's branch. The trap is the ticket wording: booked to an ID number and scanned with 'your own valid ID'. Book with the passport number on Ctrip if WeChat defeats you, and carry the passport; in cherry-blossom and ginkgo seasons the park fills with locals, the hall still does not. For the traveller with a second half-day who has already done the Army; anyone landing at the airport with an afternoon.
Lishan Garden & the bronze chariots
丽山园 · 铜车马Nothing dramatic above ground (a grass hill, foundations and one excellent small museum), and the reason to come is exactly that most day-trippers skip it. Leaving without the chariots means you saw the army and missed the emperor. Do not start it after 16:30: checks end 17:00 at both sites and there is no published shuttle timetable, so ask the driver about the last bus back. The traps: the private 'Qinling Underground Palace' replica on the road is not this (the real tomb park is inside the museum ticket, by museum shuttle), and guiding has to be booked at Pit 1's desk (029-81399047/48, Chinese) before you ride over, because the garden has no guide point of its own. For anyone on a Terracotta Army day with the afternoon to spare; the visitor who books the morning slot and finds Pit 1 full.
Open the place →Daming Palace (Tang)
大明宫遗址公园（唐）A park over foundations: lawns, a lake, a reconstructed gate and a raised platform — superb for the scale and the quiet, nothing to 'see' at eye level, and Tang rather than Qin-Han, so it answers a different question from the other two. Do the Hanyuan Hall terrace an hour before the 18:30 last entry for the light, or skip the ticket and walk the free park in the evening; skip the whole thing on a two-day visit. The traps: two metro stations serve two different gates, and Daminggong West leaves you a 20-minute walk from the ticketed core; the second Wednesday's free day is for residents, so the core is fuller that day, not cheaper; and this is not the Tang Paradise theme garden in Qujiang. For a free evening in the city with no booking; the Tang-minded rather than the Qin-Han-minded.