Relaxing getaway from the busy city life for the whole family
Moganshan is a great place to visit with a dog and relatively easy to get to from Shanghai. We booked a Hulala for around 700RMB return as Peggy is a larger dog and a regular taxi wouldn’t take us. Huolala’s are generally bigger cars or vans and are good if you also have luggage. Our van on the way back didn’t have seatbelts though so that’s worth bearing in mind. We traveled during a national holiday so the traffic was quite bad but on a good day it takes about 3.5 hours. We found a great place to stay on Airbnb. It consisted of two large houses and a smaller annex building which we stayed in, with a shared pool and garden. The owner was really helpful, giving us tips on where we could take Peggy. He has two dogs himself and was happy for Peggy to roam free in the garden and play around the pool whilst we swam. There isn’t much around the accommodation but there is one shop where you can get basics like snacks and coffee.
Moganshan Town
The town itself is a popular tourist spot and can be quite busy, but is definitely worth a visit. It is very picturesque and has quite a different feel to a lot of places we’ve visited in China, it almost felt like we were in an English market town! There are loads of places to eat and we found most of them let us in with Peggy. We particularly liked Apollo, a little western restaurant near the river with outdoor seating. We also enjoyed lots of good Chinese food, especially the guokui, a chinese flatbreak with meat in, which you should definitely try if you go. There were a few small bars but none of the ones we tried would let Peggy in.
Activities
Not far from our accommodation was a river that runs all the way to Moganshan town. It took us around 20 minutes to get to the town and we walked along the river every day to get something to eat. There were plenty of spots for Peggy to swim and for us to rest. The track was fairly untouched but they were doing some building work along parts of the river and we saw artist impression images of how it will look when it is finished. They are building a walkway all along the river and it looked like it will be beautiful when it’s done.
Walking up the mountain is definitely on everyone’s list of things to do. We walked partway as it was too hot for Peggy in May. There are so many walks and hikes that we didn’t feel like we needed to do that specific route, which was much busier than others. If you don’t mind a long hike, there is a temple called Gaofeng temple, at the top of a hill. Signs stated that dogs weren’t allowed but no one challenged us with Peggy. We mostly spent our days walking in the countryside and then headed into the town for dinner. It was also nice to spend a day by the pool and we were the only ones using it.
Overall, Moganshan was great for both us and Peggy. There were lots of outdoor activities on offer but we spent most of our time walking or exploring the town. We also hired electric scooters one day and rode around which was fun. If you want a chilled holiday with plenty of rural space for dogs to run around, Moganshan is a great place to go!
Hotel: 莫干山栖香记 book on Trip.com
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