The Ming Xiaoling is a Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644) tomb mausoleum of the first Ming emperor, the Hongwu Emperor (Zhu Yuanzhang). As the Ming Dynasty's capital was originally situated at Nanjing at first until the completion of the Forbidden City in 1420, hence why this tomb is located at Nanjing whereas the other Ming tombs are located in Beijing. The tomb is part of the Purple Mountain area of Nanjing, which also contains the Sun Yat Sen Mausoleum, the Sun Quan Mausoleum and the Meiling Villa, amongst others as well. This means that a few of these sites can be covered within the same day, although the walking distance can be considerable however. The tomb can be reached by metro on Muxuyuan station or through taxi. Be prepared for a long walk just to get to the proper entrance of the first building though as first you will need to walk through a garden or park of sorts. The garden is about at least more than half a kilometre in length, where you will be greeted with a long line of all sorts of animal and human statues, some of which are rather interesting to look at. It can be quite beautiful to photograph them on autumn or winter sometimes. Once you reach the first building proper, there is still a significant distance to walk to finally get to the last and biggest building of the tomb, which is the mausoleum. There will be steps to climb up and some of it is not that easy so those with difficulty climbing will have to take it slow here. Once you get up to the top however, the views can be very stunning and well worth the long walk. Compared to the Sun Yat Sen Mausoleum, this is less crowded and more pleasant to walk to due to less stairs, but the amount of walking should not be underestimated, for it simply just shows how big in scale the Ming emperors built their tomb. Definitely worth a visit for the first time visitor to Nanjing.

We visited the mausoleum in early January on a cold, rainy, and foggy day. Surprisingly, the walk along the 1.1-mile long Sacred Way turned out to be the highlight of the visit. Its tranquility and unique beauty made the experience calming and pleasant. The stone sculptures of various animals and generals from the Ming Dynasty is something one should not miss. The mausoleum itself is not that impressive.

We booked a day tour to Nanjing from Shanghai and this was one the stops on the tour. It was the last day of the plum blossom festival and the blooms were beautiful! There’s a walk with massive carvings of animals, carved out of a single piece of rock. There are four carvings of each animal - two standing and two resting. The animals are guards. We didn’t climb up to the tomb, but just walked the grounds. It was quite busy and was nice to have a local guide. We took the bullet train between Shanghai and Nanjing which was a nice and clean train.