As the hometown of Confucius and Mencius, Qufu's main claim to fame is having shaped two sages of the ages.

 

Today, the tiny town of Qufu is essentially a museum of Confucius, where visitors can see the house in which he was born, the graveyard in which he was buried and the temple built to honor him after his passing.

 

The Confucius Temple (90 yuan, $11.7) warehouses several pagoda-covered inscriptions, the only dragon-carved columns found outside of the Forbidden City during ancient times and courtyards populated with centuries-old cypresses. Spanning 22 hectares, the 466 buildings in this walled-in temple take up one-fifth of the area of the city. During springtime, patches of wildflowers sprout from the rooftops of many of these ancient edifices.

 

At the Kong Family Mansion, visitors can see the opulence in which Confucius' descendents lived on the coattails of their nomadic ancestor's destitute death.

 

North of town in Qufu County, visitors can bike the Confucian Forest. This graveyard for Confucius and his disciples spans more than 200 hectares and is shaded by thousands of ancient trees - said to have been planted by the sage's disciples.

 

Those looking to make more than a day out of Qufu can also visit the Duke of Zhou Temple (Zhougongmiao), the Duke of the State of Liang Woods (Lianggonglin), the Mother of Mencius Woods (Mengmulin) and the ruins of the ancient city of the Ducal State of Lu.

 

With a population of 620,000 dwelling in an area of 896 square kilometers, most travel in Qufu can be done on foot. And visitors to this town would find that strolling these streets means truly stepping into the past.

 

(China Daily by Nie Zirui May 17, 2007)