The 2012 Yungang Grottoes Tourism Festival closed on Oct 12 in Datong, Shanxi province. The festival convened on Sept 6 and lasted for 37 days.

The festival combined traditional culture and modern elements, offering a cultural and tourism feast to visitors. A series of events were held during the festival to promote Datong’s tourism resources, reported Shanxi Daily News.

The highlight of the festival was the Datong First International Biannual Fresco Exhibition which kicked off on Sept 26 and will last for five months until Feb 28, 2013. Five-hundred works are on display at the exhibition, including murals of Huayan Temple and Shanhua Temple in Datong and copies of frescos at Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, Xinjiang Kizil Grottoes and Gansu Maijishan Grottoes. Works from national fresco artists and foreign artists from Russia, Japan and South Korea are also on display.

As part of the festival, a royal parade was held regularly in Yungang Grottoes to transport visitors back to the Northern Wei Dynasty (AD 386- 534), when Datong was capital for 97 years.

The Datong municipal tourism bureau took the opportunity to promote the city’s tourism resources. A promotion conference was held in Beijing on Sept 23 where eight tourism routes were introduced. The tourist routes allow visitors to appreciate ancient Chinese Buddhist architecture, hike on Hengshan Mountain, sightsee in the ancient Chinese capital, experience modern city life and visit the remote frontier fortress.

The Jinhuagong National Mineral Park, the only one of its kind in Shanxi province, opened on Sept 7. Yungang Grottoes sits next to the park, on the other bank of the river. The park has a long mining history. The Jurassic coal seam, a geological wonder, was also found there. The park covers a 360,000-square-meter area and consists of a Coal Mining Museum, an Exhibition Area of Industrial Sites, a Folk Custom Village and a special Underground Mine Tour. The park depicts how coal came into being, how it is extracted, and how coal miners work underground.