Beijing early autumn features varied beautiful views. In this autumn, don’t you want to visit some of these beautiful places? Mountaineering poses as one of the most favored sport during this season, and you might as well pay a visit to the so-called Python Mountain to experience the feel of autumn.

The Python Mountain in fact has nothing to do with pythons except that the mountain looks like a giant slithering python viewed from afar. In Chinese, it is named Mangshan. The Python Mountain National Forest Park is the largest national forest park in Beijing, about 35 km away from downtown Beijing. This tourist attraction is full of interesting mountain peaks and is covered with lush forests. The coverage of the forests reaches up to 96% and is indeed a natural oxygen bar. The man-made forests of the park cover an area of about 87,000,000 square meters, where there are 176 kinds of trees and flowers. These forests are green all year round.

In addition to the large forests, the park also has other impressive attractions such as the Giant Buddha, Python Mountain Pagoda, High Mountain Corridor and so on. On the large platform at the foot of the mountain sits a gracious-looking Maitreya, which is as high as 9.9 meters and weighs over 1,500 tons and consists of 200 pieces of granite with each weighing 5-10 tons. It is the largest stone Buddha in northern China. At the foot and on top of the mountain there is a painted corridor respectively. The corridor at the foot of the mountain stretches as long as 90 meters, sitting on a hollow stone dam; and the corridor on top of the mountain is 150 meters long and is the longest painted corridor in Beijing. It looks like a lying dragon discerned in the fog.

Now is neither too hot nor too cold and is really the best time to climb mountains. To appreciate the beautiful scenery of Beijing autumn, you may try this special and beautiful mountain Beijing offers to each and every tourist coming here.

Address: No. 2, Mangshan Road, Changping District, Beijing 北京市昌平区蟒山路2号

Admission: 20 RMB

Getting there: Take Bus No. 888 at Dengshengmen (德胜门) and get off at its terminal; take Bus No. 345 at Dengshengmen, get off at Chaofengan the terminal, and walk to the park.