Sunday, August 4, 2019

Historical Places in Tainan

Tainan was the capital city of Taiwan from 1683 to 1887, under the ruling Qing Dynasty. The provincial capital was moved to Taipei after 1887. As one of the oldest city in Taiwan, Tainan is filled with old streets, temples, and of course, remnant of the old forts and castles. 

First of all, getting a right place to stay is important. For us, we stayed in ECFA Hotel (爱客发商务旅客), which is right at the heart of the city. The hotel is surrounded by old temples, and Chihkan Tower  (赤崁楼) is just nearby. Most of the places of interest and food streets are located at the old city (An Ping area and West Central District), staying somewhere nearby the area is highly recommended.

Let us start with the forts and old city remnants- Chihkan Tower (赤崁楼), AnPing Old Fort (安平古堡), Eternal Golden Castle (二鲲鯓炮台), and the south city gate (府城南门). South city gate is named Dananmen (大南门) in Google Map. Due to the summer promotion, these places could be accessed free of charge. The hot and humid weather deterred tourists activities, so these places were quiet during our visit. 

Our recommendation- visit Anping Old Fort, Anping old town, and Eternal Golden Castle together, as these places are nearby to each other. Chihkan Tower is surrounded by food streets. So visit the tower in late afternoon follow by a street-dining feast along the food streets will be nice.

South city gate is located south from Zhongyi Road. We can visit old Confucius Temple and old Tainan administration offices along the road. Shin Kong Mitsukoshi shopping mall- the biggest shopping mall in Tainan, is around 400 meters to the west of south city gate. 


Chihkan Tower is located at Section 2, Minzu Road. The tower was build around 1650 by Dutch, named Fort Provintia, as a defense tower in urban area. 1662, the fort was taken by Koxinga (郑成功), a Chinese general, and turned it into administration center of Tainan. The old fort was completely destroyed by earthquake. The beautiful towers that we can see today is built in 19th century on the foundation of the old fort. It has been renamed as Chihkan Tower. 

The original entrance of Fort Provintia. The entrance had been blocked for safety reason.

The foundation of the old tower.

Chihkan Tower from Minzu Road entrance (upper left). The entrance was free during our visit (May and June promotion). Some items, including the original design of the tower were exhibited in the building (upper right). The landscape was beautiful (lower right). The tower is beautiful, but, lack of historical value. The statue of lion and other decorative items were built in recent years. The tower worth a short visit anyway. We stayed there for around 30 minutes. Then, we walked down Minzu Road and Guohua Street. We took several types of food along the streets for dinner.

Anping Old Fort was built in 1632 by Dutch, to safeguard the entrance to Tainan seaport. It was originally named as Fort Zeelandia. The fort was taken by Koxinga in 1662, and renamed it as AnPing. The fort was completely abandoned under the ruling Qing Dynasty. The complex we can see today is built after World War 2. 

This wall was built by Dutch- the first owner of the fort. It is located around 50 meters behind the entrance.

Old well left at the semi-circle bastion of the old fort.

The white tower which we can see in the tourism leaflets and websites is standing on the foundation of old fort. It was built after World War 2. There is a souvenir shop and information center beside the tower. 

Several cannon replicas are displayed around the fort. These cannons are facing the sea. Photo was taken beside the white tower.

The tower is open to public, free of charge. We can see beautiful scenery of Tainan from the top of the tower. 

The original state of Fort Zeelandia. From here, we know that what have been left for us today are not more than a few battered walls. The site was badly preserved. There is a museum on the left of the entrance. It worth a visit. 

Our group photo outside of the museum. We spent around one hour walking around the fort and the museum. We roamed around Anping old town for a while before we walked to Eternal Golden Castle. It took us around 30 minutes to walk to the castle. The hot weather almost got us killed.

The Eternal Golden Castle is actually a small fort, around 1.7 kms from Anping Old Fort. It was built by Qing Official in 1876 to safeguard the coastline of Tainan.
The huge flat area at the middle of the fort was the resting and training ground for the soldiers (upper left). The armory (upper right), huge cannons pointing towards the coastline (lower right) and the moat can be seen as well. Some sources stated that the fort was built with the bricks dismantled from Fort Zeelandia. We took taxi to Wen Zhang Beef Soup （文章牛肉汤, some website refer it as Win Chang Beef Soup）to take our lunch, before we went back to our hotel. We visited Fucheng Nanmen and Confucius Temple the next day.


South city gate, or Fucheng Nanmen is located at Shulin Street. The gate is the only one with defensive enclosure in Taiwan.

The enclosure extends from the city gate and forms an outer layer of city wall. The enclosure was built around 1835.

 City gate.

Former Tainan Broadcasting Bureau Building, built in 1932. The building is located nearby the south gate.

Old temples and buildings are scattered all around the city- Confucius Temple (upper left),  Koxinga family temple (upper right), old fire station (lower right) and old court house are a few of them.

The good thing about Tainan- we can get nice food along the streets when we are moving from a tourist spot to another. We shared our experience in getting nice food in Tainan in our blog as well. We shared information about the place we stayed, shopping, and transportation as well.

More about our experience in Kaohsiung and Tainan:


More about our experience in Taipei: 






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Food in Tainan

There are many nice food in Tainan. If we stay at the town center, we can find nice eateries nearby  Chihkan Tower. Or we can roam around Minzu Road, Guohua Street, Hai'an Road, Bao'an Street and the area in vicinity. We spent two nights there and tried many types of dishes along the streets. The prices of the food were within NTD 40 to NTD 250 per portion.  Let us start with the eateries nearby Chihkan Tower.

DuXiaoYue Noodle Shop and Chihkan Lou Eatery are located beside Chihkan (upper left). We tried a few dishes such as fried noodle (upper right), danzimian with egg (ta-a noodles, 担仔面)(lower right), and squid in thick soup (花枝羹).  

Zhang Jia Eatery is located at Minzu Road section 2, nearby DuXiaoYue Noodle Shop (upper left). We tried unagi noodle in thick soup (鳝鱼羹面)(upper right), fried oyster with egg ( 蚵仔煎) (lower right), and special bread with vegetable and seafood sauce. The local calls the bread "coffin board" (棺材板). The coffin board was nice.

YongLe Roasted Pork Shop located at Minzu Road section 2, beside the junction of Guohua Street (upper left). The shop was full with customers when we arrived around 8 pm. We tried a few dishes- fried fish (upper right), sliced pork (lower right), and stewed pork with rice. Each dish came with vegetable salad with egg and soup. The portion was big for one person.


We walked around Bao'an Road and tried several types of food- roasted duck (upper right), curry rice (lower right), and duck rice (lower left) at A Juan Curry Rice and Duck Soup. The shop located at the east side of Bao'an Road.

We tried several other food along the road, such as fried rice cake with egg (米粿) (upper left), fried rice with lark (猪油拌饭) (upper right), and desserts (lower row). The desserts were a bit sweet, even after our request to reduce the sugar.

Win Chang Beef Soup Shop is located at An Ping Road. We visited the shop on our way to Anping Old Fort. The shop was full with customers during our visit around 1 pm (upper left). We tried the signature beef soup (upper right), beef noodle (lower right), and fried rice with beef. All dishes tasted good.

The historical sites of Tainan are scattered all around the city. So we can visit them while we are on our way to get nice food along the streets.

We visited several places in Tainan and Kaohsiung. More about our experiences in Kaohsiung and Tainan are available at:

More about our experience in Taipei: 

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Accommodation, Shopping and Transportation in Tainan

Place to stay
Tainan is a peaceful city. The streets are safe and clean, day and night. So even with a simple map we got from the hotel, we had no problem to walk around the town area on our own. In Tainan, most of the tourist spots are out of reach of public transport system. So staying in the middle of the city is important- we can walk to several places of interest, and easier to get taxi to move further away from the city. 

We stayed in ECFA Hotel, located at the middle of the city. We could walk to many places- 5 minutes to Chihkan Tower, 5 minutes to Hayashi Department Store, 10 minutes to Tainan Judicial Museum and Confucius Temple, 15 minutes to Nanmen Park and Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Mall. There are many eateries around the area as well.

There was no public transport available nearby the hotel. We had to get a taxi to visit places such as Anping Old Fort, Anping Old Town, and Eternal Golden Castle. The hotel rate was very cheap during our visit. 

Ground floor of the hotel. We need to take lift to the lobby.

The lobby of ECFA Hotel (upper left), with free flow of cold drinks and hot coffee (upper right). The room was nicely decorated (lower right). The hotel is located at one of the main streets in Tainan City.

Shopping
There are a few malls nearby our hotel. Hayashi Department Store was built in 1932 during the Japanese occupation. It was one of the earliest building in Taiwan equipped with elevator. The building was restored in 2014. Now, it is occupied by stalls selling local food, clothes, souvenirs, and handicrafts.

Hayashi Department Store is called "five-storey building" (upper left). Each level of the building is uniquely decorated (upper and lower right). We can see the scenery around the area on the top of the building.

Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Mall is the biggest shopping mall in Tainan. It is filled with special brand outlets, and several Japanese and Western restaurants. As we came to Tainan for local food and products, the mall was not attractive to us. One good thing about the mall- fully air-conditioned and really cooling. In hot middle of May, is was like the oasis in a desert.
The outlook of Shin Kong Mall (entrance facing Yongfu Road). The mall has another entrance facing Ximen Road. There are several food streets scatter nearby Ximen Road, including Bao'an Road and Guohua Street.

Old streets around Anping Old Town area are full of shops selling snacks, souvenirs, clothes, handicrafts, and many more.
Most of the streets were quiet due to the hot weather. We enjoyed walking down the streets without squeezing crowd.

Shopping street at night.

Transportation
There are several choices to move around old town and Anping area- by foot, by bicycle, or by taxi. All the taxi in Tainan is charged by meter. Extra NTD 10 will be charge on baggage. Most of the taxi can carry up to 4 passengers, while some of them can carry up to 6 with extra charges.

The streets are safe and pedestrian friendly. We can walk freely as long as we have a map and an umbrella. This photo was taken in Anping Old Town, when we were taking a short cut to Eternal Golden Castle.

Motorbikes and pedestrians moving around in a narrow street, without any problem. Photo taken at the junction between Bao'an Street and Guohua Street.

Signage of tourist attractions with distances are given. 

 We came over several booths with bicycles for rent.


Tainan Central Train Station- the place where we took the commuter train between Kaohsiung and Tainan. Tickets can be bought on site.

The commuter train with designated seat is more comfortable, spacious, faster, and more expensive. The commuter train with free seating (like MRT) is more crowded and slower (more stations).

Read more about our experience in Kaohsiung and Tainan:


More about our experience in Taipei: 



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