Kuimen gate
Mouth of the gorge.
Yumeto — CC BY-SA 4.0 · 图片上传者：吴显胜（China） — CC BY 3.0 · Yumeto — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Gisling — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Ekrem Canli — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Tomasz Dunn from Lodnon/Durham, UK — CC BY 2.0 · Liuxingy — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Liuxingy — CC BY-SA 4.0
A group of old temples and pavilions on a hill above the north bank of the Yangtze, about 8 km east of Fengjie, at the Kuimen gate where the river enters the Qutang Gorge, the first and narrowest of the Three Gorges. Legend says that in the 1st century Gongsun Shu saw a white mist, or a white dragon, over the spot and proclaimed himself the «White Emperor», which gave the place its name. Since the Three Gorges Dam raised the river, the hill has stood on an island joined to the bank by a bridge; older buildings went under the water and new ones were built higher up. It is called the «City of Poems» for all the poets who wrote about it, among them Li Bai in his famous poem of leaving Baidi in the morning, and Du Fu lived here for two or three years. Liu Bei, first emperor of Shu Han in the Three Kingdoms era, is said to have died here. From the top you look down on the mouth of the gorge and the cliffs carved with inscriptions at Kuimen. Tickets are CNY 100 from March to October and CNY 60 in winter, the boat into the gorge costs CNY 50, and it is open from 8.30 am to 7 pm, with ticket sales ending at 5 pm, per visitor guides. Many Yangtze river cruises stop here.
Mouth of the gorge.
To the island.
Into Qutang Gorge.
North bank of the Yangtze, about 8 km east of Fengjie town, Chongqing
Yangtze cruises stop here, and fast trains reach Fengjie, from where a taxi covers the 8 km or so to the site.