5 Days in Xiamen

Visitors sail from the Xiamen International Cruise Terminal (also called Dongdu), several kilometers up the coast from Zhongshan Road, not from the old ferry quay in the center that locals use. Metro line 2 stops at the terminal. The crossing takes about 20 minutes, and the first boat is around 7:10, with several sailings an hour and a pricier "deluxe" boat at about 80 CNY.

Book the return ticket online with your passport beforehand (see the tips). If that fails, be at the terminal counter early with the original passport, and expect a wait for a boat with free seats. The landing is Sanqiutian or Neicuo'ao; Sanqiutian is busier and closer to the sights. Keep the ticket, which is tied to your name. The last boat back leaves the island around 5:40 pm on the winter timetable from October, so set an alarm. After about 6 pm in winter, a night service links the island with the Lundu quay in the center, but it also needs a tourist ticket.

The first stop is Bagualou, the "Eight Trigrams Tower", a villa from around 1907 on the north-west side of the island. It houses the Gulangyu Organ Museum, whose centerpiece is an English pipe organ built by Norman & Beard in 1909, taken apart in 2004 and brought to the island in tens of thousands of pieces. The building reopened in 2024 after almost three years of repairs, with several times the public space.

Gulangyu is called Piano Island because pianos arrived with the first foreign residents in the 1840s, and music is still part of how the island sees itself. Time your visit for one of the demonstration recitals, which run through the day.

Now put the map away. Gulangyu is only about two square kilometers, and the best of it is in the lanes between the main paths. The UNESCO listing covers around fifty heritage properties, a mix of Southern Fujian houses, Western classical villas and veranda-colonial buildings. Look for the former US consulate, the Union Church of about 1911, the Catholic church of about 1917 and the 1871 office of the Danish Great Northern Telegraph company.

Cars, bikes and motorcycles are banned, so goods move on handcarts, and the only motors you hear belong to electric buggies. Walk away from the shopping lanes and the groups thin out. If your legs complain, a buggy circles the island for a flat fare.

Gulangyu restaurants are aimed at day-trippers, and prices run higher than on the Xiamen side. The reliable move is to eat something small and local rather than a sit-down lunch: fish balls stuffed with pork in a clear soup are the island's own snack, and a bowl of shacha noodles is easy to find too.

Seafood is the main business, with live fish and shellfish in tubs by the door, so ask for the price before the cook starts.

Sunlight Rock is the highest point on the island, with views over Gulangyu's roofs, the harbor and Xiamen's towers beyond. It is a steep climb on steps, about 20 minutes, and the summit platform is small, so expect to queue. The ticket includes a Buddhist temple on the hill.

Dragon Head Hill, as the same rise is also called, was the headquarters of Zheng Chenggong, known in the West as Koxinga. He is the Ming loyalist who drove the Dutch out of Taiwan in the 1660s, and a 24-meter statue of him stands on a cliff looking toward Xiamen Island, which he also held as an anti-Qing base. Treat the whole hill as one stop.

Walk down to the sea on the south side for Shuzhuang Garden, a seaside garden built by Lin Erjia, a wealthy Taiwanese businessman who left Taiwan when Japan took over the island in the 1890s. It is a garden of bridges, rocks and pavilions on the shore, with the "44 Bridge" over the water and a rockery with hidden sculptures of the twelve zodiac animals.

The Piano Museum is inside, with more than a hundred antique pianos, including rare instruments from the 1700s. Guided tours several times a day include a short performance on a few of them. Sit by the water before the walk back to the ferry.

Back on Xiamen Island, finish with the city's signature dish. Shacha noodles (shāchá miàn) come in a peanutty, savory broth whose name goes back to the Malay satay. The sauce is a paste of garlic, shallots, chili and dried shrimp, and the noodles come with pork or seafood on top.

Plenty of shops are open in the evening, and the Lundu waterfront near the old ferry quay, a short taxi ride from the cruise terminal, is a decent way to end the day.

Nanputuo (South Putuo) is Xiamen's great Buddhist temple, founded in the Tang dynasty and named for Mount Putuo in Zhejiang, one of Buddhism's four sacred mountains. The Qing general Shi Lang paid for a large rebuilding in 1684, and a shrine hall for Guanyin was added then. It is a working temple, so people come to pray, not to pose.

Go early. Behind the temple a path climbs the Wulao peaks to a viewpoint over the harbor, the quickest way to get above Xiamen. Entry is free, but since spring 2026 you book a free slot on the temple's mini program a few days ahead, so check before you go. It closes in the late afternoon. It gets very crowded on the first and fifteenth day of each lunar month.

The university next door was founded in 1921 by Tan Kah Kee, a Singapore rubber magnate who also built the schools in Jimei. The campus has old traditional buildings, gardens and Furong Lake, where black swans live, and the Furong Tunnel, a 1.1 km covered path painted with student graffiti, is the thing most visitors want to see.

Outside visitors now need a reservation, made through the university's visitor WeChat account about three days ahead, and places are drawn by lottery. Don't build the day around it.

Shapowei is the old harbor of Xiamen, a bifengwu, or typhoon shelter, where boats sat out storms. The small wharves have since turned into a place for food, shopping and young artists, a mix of low houses, rusty dock edges and studios that are free to enter.

It is a relaxed place for lunch after the temple. Look for a shacha noodle shop open at midday, and try an oyster omelette (hǎilìjiān) with sweet peanut soup afterwards.

Xiamen has always faced attack from the sea, and Hulishan is the best of its forts: a Qing-dynasty coastal battery built in 1894 during the Westernization Movement, on the south-east headland of the island. The main attraction is a huge Krupp coastal gun bought from Germany. There were originally two, and only one remains.

The fort also has the best view of the strait. A few kilometers across the water lie the Kinmen islands, which are administered from Taipei. Binoculars on the platform (a few yuan) let you look at Dadan and Xiaodan, the nearest of them. It is a short stop, but it makes the geography of this coast concrete.

Huandao Road, the ring road around the island, is where Xiamen is at its best on a bike. A separate bicycle path runs along much of it, and a boardwalk of about 10 km follows the beach, with bike rental places along the way. Start at Baicheng beach by the university and ride east past Hulishan toward Zengcuoan and Music Square.

The whole ring is a full day, so ride only the south-east stretch and take a bus or taxi back. Watch for the places where the path ends and you share the road.

Zengcuoan was a small fishing village, and its red-brick houses and narrow alleys are still there, wedged between the ring road and the shore. Today the alleys are given over to snacks, seafood, souvenirs and cafés.

Be honest with yourself about what it is. It is commercial, loud and aimed at day-trippers, but it is also an easy place to eat after a day outdoors. Come at dusk, walk the alley once, then pick a seafood restaurant at the edge where the prices are on the menu, and try the oyster omelette or the sea worm jelly if you're curious.

There are three ways to go. A private car with a driver is the most comfortable and takes around two hours each way. Expect around 1,500 yuan for the vehicle for the day, which your hotel can help arrange, and it is cheaper split between up to four people. A group day tour with a pickup in Xiamen costs about 180-300 yuan a head, with less time at each stop.

The cheap option is a fast train to Nanjing (Fujian) or a coach from Xiamen, but the stations are far from the tulou, so with a bus or taxi the total is three to four hours each way.

Tianluokeng ("Snail Pit") is the postcard: five earthen buildings arranged on a hillside, a square one called Buyun Lou in the middle with three round buildings and an oval one around it. The pattern is called "four dishes and a soup". The cluster sits on a hillside, so look for the paths and viewpoints above it, which show the buildings together.

A tulou is a fortified communal home of the Hakka, a people who moved south from the north centuries ago and built walls of rammed earth, mixed with lime and straw, up to about 1.8 meters thick, with one or two gates and a well inside. Whole clans lived in them, and many are still homes today. Walk in through the gate, look at the galleries and the courtyard, and treat it as someone's home.

Plan lunch in the village near the clusters and ask your driver where he eats. Hakka cooking is outwardly simple: stewed and braised meat, preserved vegetables and plain, tasty dishes built around texture, not heavy spice.

Order what the kitchen is already cooking, and carry cash, since small village places may not take cards.

Yuchang Lou, a few kilometers from the cluster, is one of the oldest and tallest tulou, five stories high and said to date to 1308, in the Yuan dynasty. Its wooden pillars lean at odd angles, which earned it the nickname "zigzag building", and the story is that the builders made a mistake when measuring the beams. Whatever the cause, it has stood for centuries.

Taxia, the village where you had lunch, is worth a short wander. Leave by about 3:30 pm: the drive takes two hours, so part of it will be after the 5:30 sunset on a narrow mountain road.

Many of the Chinese communities of Penang, Medan and Manila trace their roots to the Minnan region, and the Overseas Chinese Museum, at 493 Siming South Road, tells that story. Tan Kah Kee, the rubber magnate who founded Xiamen University, started it, and it gives special attention to emigrants who came back to invest in or help the homeland.

Most labels are in Chinese, but the third floor is worth a look even without them: a collection of ancient bronzes, pottery and other art.

Zhongshan Road is a pedestrian street of roughly a kilometer, running inland from the old ferry quay, lined with qilou arcades, shopfronts with covered pavements in a Southeast Asian-influenced style. The covered walkway keeps the rain off, which matters in Xiamen.

The arcades are the draw. The shops sell souvenirs, tea and snacks, and it is the most touristy street in the city. A few minutes away on Taiguang Street stands Xinjie Church, called the first church in mainland China built for Chinese worshippers. It was dedicated in 1849, and the present Romanesque building dates from 1935. Look for the small lanes parallel to the main street, which have older shops and fewer visitors.

Zhongshan Road is the right place to try the dishes you've been warned about. Huasheng tang, sweet peanut soup served warm, is the classic. Huang Zehe, at 22-24 Zhongshan Road, is the best-known place for it. Check the hours before you go, since it is a small shop.

For something savory, find a bowl of mian xian hu, vermicelli cooked into a thick broth, or a plate of fish balls. If you are not yet ready for the sea worm jelly (tǔsǔndòng), this is the kind of street where you will meet it.

Fujian is tea country. Tieguanyin, the oolong that originated in Anxi, just north of Xiamen, is the local classic, and the gongfu method of brewing it, with short repeated infusions, has its roots in this part of China and nearby Chaoshan.

Choose a tea house with seats and a menu, not a shop that pours free samples and then pushes you to buy a kilo. Ask for Tieguanyin and let the host brew it for you, and agree the price before the first pot.

Yundang Lake lies in the middle of the island, and white egrets, the symbol of Xiamen and the logo of Xiamen Airlines, fly to and from it around dawn and dusk. Walk the path on the north side, by Bailuzhou Park, and watch the birds while the buildings around the lake switch on their laser and LED displays.

It is not a sight in the usual sense, just a quiet hour, with bars and restaurants on the north shore if you want a drink.

Finish with the oyster omelette (hǎilìjiān), small oysters, eggs, sweet potato starch and garlic shoots fried together. If you know the Taiwanese version, don't expect it: the Xiamen one is quite different. The Minnan name is ô-á-chian.

Stalls and small restaurants selling it open in the evening, some from about 5 pm until after midnight, so you can eat late even when Zhongshan Road is shut. Add a bowl of soup and you have a cheap, good dinner.

Take a fast train from Xiamen North to Quanzhou Station; there are frequent departures, and tickets cost a few dozen yuan. Book on 12306 with your passport, and arrive at the station early, because you need the passport to board.

Outside Quanzhou Station there is a bus station, and taxis start cheap. Allow extra time for taxis, and save the Chinese names of your stops on your phone.

Kaiyuan Temple is the largest Buddhist temple complex in Fujian, founded in the Tang dynasty in the late 7th century. Its two pagodas, Zhenguo and Renshou, stand face to face in the courtyard and are known as the largest stone pagodas of their kind: the east one is about 48 meters high and was rebuilt in stone in 1238. The reliefs include monkey figures, and the pagodas appear in the video game Black Myth: Wukong, which has brought more visitors.

The temple also has Hindu carvings, left by traders from southern India, and a mulberry tree said to be 1,300 years old.

Quanzhou shares its cooking with Xiamen. The fresh spring rolls (popiah) are a tradition of Quanzhou, Xiamen and Zhangzhou, and oyster omelette and noodle soups are easy to find. Eat on a side lane off West Street rather than at the big restaurants by the temple gate.

Bring cash or the payment apps, since small places may not take cards. Order a few small things and share them.

The Qingjing Mosque (Ashab Mosque) on Tumen Street dates to 1009 and is the only survivor of the seven mosques that once stood here, in the city the West knew as Zayton. An international community of Arabs, Persians and Indians, perhaps over 100,000 people by some estimates, lived in Quanzhou in the port's heyday. The mosque's dome was restored in 2009 after two centuries without one.

It is small and rewarding, and the UNESCO listing covers it with Kaiyuan Temple and other sites.

Tianhou Temple is dedicated to Mazu, the sea goddess worshipped by sailors and fishermen along China's coast. In a port city that sent ships to Southeast Asia and beyond, the goddess of safe passage mattered.

Look for the ancient stone bixi turtles with an illegible stele on the grounds and the pond in a back courtyard. Mazu's most important temple is on Meizhou Island, further up the coast, but this one is the easy one to reach from the old town.

Take a taxi about 10 km north-east to the Luoyang Bridge, also called Wan'an Bridge, the first stone bay bridge in China and one of the four ancient bridges of the country. Work started in 1053, and Cai Xiang, the Quanzhou prefect, took over in 1058.

Look at the piers, which say more about the age of the bridge than the railings. It is a long way for a short stop, so go only if you have time before your train, or skip it and visit the Maritime Museum, which has ship models and carved stones from the port's religions and is free.