Huaqing Pool is at the foot ofLi Shan, 30km east of Xi’an on the road to the Terracotta Army (take bus #306 or #307 from the train station). Its springs, with mineral-rich water emerging at a con- stant and agreeable 43 have been attracting people for nearly 2500 years, including many emperors. Qin Shi Huang had a residence here, as did the Han emperors, but its present form, a complex of bathing houses and pools, was created in the Tang dynasty. The first Tang emperor, Tar Zong, had a palace at Huaqing, but it *vas under his successor, Xuan Zong, who spent nmch of the winter here in the company of his fnvourite concubine, Yang Guifei (see box, p.287), that the complex reached its height of popularity as an imperial pleas- ure resort.
Nowadays Huaqing is a collection of classical buildings, a little less romantic than it sounds the buildings are nothing special, and the site is always thronged with day-trippers. The old imperial bathhouses, at the back of the conrplex, must once have looked impressive, but today they just resemble half-ruined, drained swimnring pools. The largest is Lotus Pool, more than a hundred metres square, once reserved for the use of Xuan Zong; a little smaller is Crabapple Pool, for his concubine Yang. As well as the pools, there are a few halls, now housing souvenir shops, and a small museum, where fragments of Qin and Tang architectural detail - roof tiles and decorated bricks - hint at past magnif- icence. A marble boat, at the edge of Jinlong Pond, on the left as you enter, was constructed in 1956. The Huaqing Hot Spring Bathhouse behind it offers you tile chance to bathe in tile waters; for a steep you are sitar ina room that looks like a mid-range hotel room (complete with a photo ora glossy tropical paradise on the wall and little plastic bottles of shampoo) with a bath and a slnower. Better is the public hathhouse at the fi’ont of the complex, on the leit of the gate as you go in, where you can bathe in a communal pool for; yon’il need to take your own towel and soap.

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