Why Go
Immortals, Mirages and a Sea Wall
1. A pavilion with a legend
Penglai Pavilion is counted with Yueyang Tower, Yellow Crane Tower and Tengwang Pavilion as one of China's four great towers, though it is sometimes left off the list because no single literary piece is tied to it. Its fame rests on myth instead: the Eight Immortals are said to have set out across the sea from here.
Poets, officials and generals have written about it, among them Su Shi and the Ming general Qi Jiguang. Name boards on the halls and the wall tablets carry the poems and names that have accumulated here over the centuries.
2. The cliff and the sea wall
The pavilion complex sits on a headland above the sea, with a low defensive wall running along the rock and the beach below. The setting is the point of the visit: the line between the Yellow Sea and the Bohai Sea is visible from the cliff, and the sea surface can produce mirages in some conditions.
The harbour at the foot of the headland, with its stone wall, was a naval base in the Ming period and has been restored, so the visit combines a temple on the cliff with a working shoreline below.
