One cliff of Buddhas, and a city that is a day around it
The mistake here is treating the day as one visit. Longmen is ¥90 and covers four areas, but the lit evening is a SECOND ticket at the same price — sales close at 19:30 and you cannot simply stay on as it gets dark. Decide before you go whether you are buying one or two. Here is where each of our Luoyang guides fits.
China for TravelersThe Longmen Grottoes — UNESCO World Heritage since 2000
Two clocks decide a Luoyang day and neither is the closing time. Longmen’s winter ticket office shuts at 16:30 — ninety minutes before the gate — so between November and February an afternoon arrival can find the site open and unsellable. And the night visit is a separate ¥90 ticket with its own sales window, 17:30 to 19:30.
First time here?
Luoyang is a one-sight city, and the one sight is worth the trip. Longmen is south of the centre and wants a full day from 08:00; White Horse Temple is east of it, in the other direction, at ¥35 with no booking step at all. They do not chain into a neat half-day each — give the grottoes their morning, and keep the temple for a second one or for a day that goes wrong.
3-5 h · ¥90
A kilometre of cliff on both banks of the Yi, carved between the fifth and eighth centuries — one ¥90 ticket covers the West and East Hills, Xiangshan Temple and Bai Garden. ⭐ The lit evening is a SECOND ticket at the same price, sold 17:30-19:30, not an extension of the day one.
One ticket or two
1.5-2.5 h · ¥35
Founded in the first century and generally called China's first Buddhist temple. ¥35 at the window with nothing to book — 07:40-18:40 from 1 April to 31 October, last entry 18:00. It is east of the city while Longmen is south, so it needs its own half-day.
No booking needed
1 day · Varies
The peony festival in April, Laojun Mountain three hours out, the museums and the rebuilt old town. What earns a second night here and what does not.
Is a second day worth itHow long
Most people give Luoyang one night between Xi’an and the east, and that is enough for the grottoes done properly. A second night buys the temple, the old town at dusk and an unhurried morning — it does not buy a different city.
Morning
Longmen at 08:00, when it opens — the Fengxian platform is nearly empty for the first hour and it is the whole reason to be here. ¥90 covers the West and East Hills, Xiangshan Temple and Bai Garden.
Afternoon
⚠️ In winter the ticket office shuts at 16:30, ninety minutes before the gate — so an afternoon arrival between November and February can find the site open and unsellable. Otherwise: the old town and a water banquet.
Want it written up properly for your dates? We build free custom itineraries →
Where to sleep
Luoyang splits three ways and the trade is always the same one: the old town has the evening and none of the convenience, the HSR station end has the grottoes and nothing else, and the new city sits between them with neither. The column that decides it is the third.
| Area | Right for | To Longmen | What it buys you |
|---|---|---|---|
| The old town (老城) | A first visit | ~40 min by bus | Lanes, the night market and the soup shops, which is the part of Luoyang that is not a monument. Furthest from the grottoes and worth it anyway. |
| By Luoyang Longmen HSR station | Arriving and leaving by train | ~15 min | The closest base to the grottoes and the fastest exit from the city. Little around it after dark. |
| The new city (新区) | Modern hotels | ~25 min | Chains, malls and space, between the old town and the HSR station. The compromise base. |
The full comparison, with named chains and what each block actually costs, is in where to stay in Luoyang →
Everything we have
Sights carry our verdict — must see, worth it, or skip if you are tight — and each group is ordered by it rather than alphabetically. Transport and practical pages do not: “must see” answers whether to go somewhere, and a railway station has no such question.
Longmen GrottoesMust see¥90 covers all four areas, and the night visit is a SECOND ¥90 ticket — sales 17:30-19:30, so you cannot simply stay on.White Horse TempleWorth itChina's first Buddhist temple, ¥35, and the rare Chinese sight with no booking step at all — which makes it the thing to keep in reserve.Everything else in LuoyangThe peony season, Laojun Mountain, the museums — what is worth a second day and what is not.
Getting around LuoyangWhich buses actually go to the grottoes, and why the two railway stations are not interchangeable.
Luoyang railway stationThe old station in the middle of town — and Longmen HSR, which is not it.
Luoyang airportSmall, and usually the wrong way in. When the train beats it, which is most of the time.On the ground
Getting online
China blocks Google, WhatsApp and Instagram at the network level, so a local SIM and hotel Wi-Fi do not get you round it — and since the April 2026 crackdown a VPN is no longer a dependable workaround. What works is a combination: your home SIM on international roaming, which keeps your real number for the SMS codes Chinese apps send, plus a travel eSIM — Holafly, Airalo or Nomad eSIM — routing through a foreign carrier so the firewall never applies to it.
Sort it before you fly. A foreign eSIM profile generally cannot be installed once the phone is already in mainland China, and that is a location restriction, so airport Wi-Fi does not solve it.
Which one, and why not a VPN → China eSIM vs VPN·How to buy and install one → Stay connected in China
Luoyang has no Western consulate — and neither does anywhere else in Henan province, including the provincial capital, Zhengzhou. A foreigner who loses a passport in Luoyang should phone their embassy in Beijing for instructions; the nearest full consular service is the embassy in Beijing (about 3.5 hours by high-speed train from Luoyang Longmen on the 京广 line via Zhengzhou) or the consulate-general network in Shanghai (about 5.5-6 hours by HSR). The local Luoyang PSB handles the police-report step regardless of where you travel for consular processing. The main municipal Exit-Entry hall is in the Sports Centre (体育中心) building on Nine Capitals Road (九都路) — the city's main foreigner-cases office; there are also district-level windows in the western Jianxi district (涧西区, the modern half of the city, by the China Pilot Free Trade Zone office) and the old city (老城区, by the Sui-Tang ruins and the Luoyi old town). Luoyang's foreigner-experienced hospitals are the university-affiliated systems — Henan University of Science and Technology runs the largest general hospital (with a central Jinghua-Road campus and a southern Kaiyuan campus closer to Longmen) and Zhengzhou University runs the central Luoyang Central Hospital next to Wangcheng Park on Metro Line 1.
For medical emergencies dial 120 (ambulance). The major hospitals listed below are large, well-equipped, and most likely to have English-speaking staff. For non-emergency visits, ask your travel insurance for in-network options.
Public Security Bureau Exit-Entry offices handle lost-passport reports, visa extensions, and foreigner residency registration. Use the most central municipal office for a standard lost-passport report; provincial or city-level offices handle complex cases such as visa-category changes.
