Explore the mountain city trail and understand the traditional Chongqing style

The mountain city alley was originally named Tian Deng Street, where a 'sky lantern pole' was erected during the Qing Dynasty. Festive lanterns were lit to pray for peace, hence the name. In 1972, Tian Deng Street was renamed to Mountain City Alley, which is the only traditional street and style area in Chongqing named after 'mountain city'. The Mountain City Alley area extends from Tongyuan Gate in the north to Mati Street in the east, South District Road in the south, and Daqiangba in the west, covering an area of about 15 hectares. Among them, the traditional style area of Mountain City Alley is 5.19 hectares. The region contains 2 national key cultural relics protection units, 2 municipal cultural relics protection units, 6 district-level and undetermined cultural relics protection units, and 5 historical buildings. Within the historical district of Mountain City Alley, there are five main pedestrian roads that branch out like tree limbs, including Mati Street, Tixin Tang Street, Lei Jia Po Street, Mountain City Alley, and the Third Mountain City Trail. There are also many side alleys extending from the main road into residential spaces. The terrain of the entire site is high in the northwest and low in the southeast, gentle from east to west, and steep from north to south, with a maximum elevation difference of 71 meters, making it a treacherous and winding terrain. In 2015, Mountain City Alley was designated by the municipal government as a traditional style area of Chongqing. In 2016, the Yuzhong District government initiated the renovation of the shanty area here. In 2018, social investment enterprises were introduced to start the protection, repair, and operation management of the style area. In 2021, the renovation of the traditional style area of Mountain City Alley was completed, and it was fully opened for operation. In December 2021, Mountain City Alley was included in the 'Second Batch of Historical Place Names Protection List of Chongqing'. Mountain City Alley is known as the 'architectural museum' of Chongqing. Here, there is the old city wall built in the early Ming Dynasty, foreign consulates and churches built during the opening of Chongqing at the end of the Qing Dynasty, as well as stilted buildings, Siheyuan, air-raid shelters, and Shikumen buildings in the Shanghai style from the war period, and schools and residential houses built at different times after the founding of New China. It is one of the few original residential architectural clusters in Chongqing with an area of over 20,000 square meters. After the opening of Chongqing in 1890, France, England, and Germany successively set up consulates in the northern part of Tian Deng Alley, which was the main office area for Chongqing's foreign affairs institutions, hence the name Consulate Alley. Tian Deng Alley, adjacent to the embassy area, became a residential area. In 1902, the French built a large complex of buildings near 12 acres at the top of Tian Deng Alley, including the Ren Ai Tang Hospital, church, and monastery (Figures 1-6), and in 1909 established the 'Ren Ai Tang Girls' School' of the Catholic Diocese of Chongqing, becoming the earliest consulate area in Chongqing. Mountain City Alley is built against the mountain and offers a view of the Yangtze River (Figures 11-17). The famous viewing and photography platform 'Third Mountain City Trail' is located here. As you ascend, some paths are door-to-door alleys (Figures 7-8), some are half-streets with the old city wall on one side (Figure 9), all very characteristic of old Chongqing. Each time you enter a narrow alley perpendicular to the main road, there is a different world inside (Figure 10). Our walking route was: Tongyuan Gate City Wall - Consulate Alley - Ren Ai Tang - Mountain City Trail, and we also visited the 'Mountain City Alley Memory Hall' to further understand Mountain City Alley.