Which Museum First?

The best museum in the city and the worst booking system in it. Do not turn up hoping for a walk-up: there is none, and the touts outside are selling nothing the museum recognises. If you are not on WeChat at 17:00 five days out, plan on the paid Tang murals ticket — the official rule says its buyers need not book the free ticket — or go to the Qin-Han branch instead. The trade-off with the branch is the collection: the Qin and Han halls moved out there, the Tang galleries and the Hejiacun hoard stayed here. Holidays, oddly, are the easiest days to book. For first-timers who can work the WeChat release or will pay for the murals gallery; anyone who came for the Tang gold.

The plan B that is a plan A for a foreign passport: you walk in with it, no app, no 17:00 scramble, and there has never been a queue. The price is distance — forty minutes to an hour each way from the old town along new-district roads — and the collection: the Qin and Han halls are here, the Tang gold is not. Worth it as the walk-in alternative when the main museum is booked out or as the airport-corridor stop; not worth it as a fourth museum in three days. Pair it with Hanyangling on the same Line 14 corridor, and after 14 November 2026 stay away on Tuesdays. For first-timers with a passport and no Chinese phone number; anyone flying in or out who wants one museum on the way.

The quieter, smaller, easier free museum — but a booking, not a walk-in, and closed on Tuesdays. With a passport, do not fight the turnstile: the rules send you to the ticket office at the west gate. The traps are in the data: every hours-and-booking figure here is a platform repost because the museum's own site would not load, and a new ticketing system in August 2026 may have moved the WeChat menus — the gate QR and the ticket office are the fallbacks. Skip it on a two-day visit unless the main museum's booking fails; if it does, this is the old-town answer and the Qin-Han branch is the cross-river one. For second-choice free museum for someone based inside the wall; the Chang'an model for anyone trying to read the city's grid.

Two hours of carved Chinese text: without the paid guide or a real interest in calligraphy, most visitors see stone tablets. Come for the Nestorian Stele and the sculpture hall, pay for the tour, and do not build a day around it. It is the only one of the five with a real ticket and the only one with neither a closed day nor a booking scramble — the ticket site takes a passport number and weekday mornings never hit the cap. The traps: the museum's own homepage popup still says ¥10 and 9:00-18:00, so trust the guide page; discounts are for Chinese citizens only; and the Nestorian Stele has moved since the 2025 north extension — ask at the desk, older guides' room numbers are wrong. For anyone with a half day inside the wall who will pay ¥85 plus a guide; not a first museum for someone who does not read Chinese.

Small figures under glass, not the big army: quieter, closer, darker, more archaeological than Lintong — and the one place in this table where you walk on glass above the pits. Do not treat it as a detour from the centre: no metro, 40 km, and the museum's own pages only tell drivers how to arrive. Do it from the airport or as the second half of a Qin-Han day with the branch. Book before you go (the notice describes no ticket window), and know that it names ID cards, not passports; a passport-booked QR should scan the same way, but phone if in doubt. In winter the last entry is 16:30. For Terracotta veterans, airport-day travellers, and anyone with a car who wants an empty museum.