共青国家森林公园

Gongqing National Forest Park has a nearly 300m cherry blossom avenue, with cherry trees scattered across the whole forest against thousands of mu of forest landscape. Located in northeast downtown Shanghai by Huangpu River, it is a forest park close to Shanghai urban area. The vast forest is the fruit of 1950s afforestation, with hills, large lawns, lakes, streams and pretty views. Visitors can enjoy boating, barbecue, horse riding, Pirate Ship (Gongqing National Forest Park Store), shooting and other entertainment, or just stroll, cycle and breathe fresh air for relaxation. Leveraging its beautiful landscapes and rich forest resources, combined with seasonal changes and traditional festivals, the park holds regular themed cultural activities every year, including 4 seasonal flower shows: Spring Hundred Flowers Show, Summer Aromatic Plant Show, Shanghai Autumn Chrysanthemum Show, Winter Narcissus Show, as well as Urban Forest Carnival, Beer Festival during National Day, and Forest Music Festival in late October. The Urban Forest Hundred Flowers Show usually opens in late March, based on original forest landscapes, taking crabapple, peach and cherry blossom forests as 3 core viewing zones, forming a unique urban forest flower sea with large arbors, wild ground flowers, creative spots and flowering shrubs, presenting layered three-dimensional scenes for visitors to enjoy flowers in the forest. The summer Aromatic Plant Show displays mint, rosemary, lavender and other aromatic plants, bringing fresh natural fragrance to visitors in hot summer. In golden autumn, it holds chrysanthemum exhibition with outdoor 3D spots, shaped and high-quality chrysanthemums, plus interactive activities like "Chrysanthemum Ceramics & Calligraphy", "Chrysanthemum Cloth Painting", "Chrysanthemum Tea Art" to inherit traditional Chinese chrysanthemum culture. At the end of each year, the annual "Spring Citizen Narcissus Modeling Competition" is held for visitors to show their carefully cultivated narcissus. The park has 4 gates, with South and West Gates as main entrances. Public buses mostly reach West Gate, while the large parking lot is at South Gate for self-driving visitors. Entering from West Gate, you first arrive at the entertainment zone, with facilities like Pirate Ship (Gongqing National Forest Park Store), Flume Ride, ice rink on the left, roller coaster, carousel, bumper cars, paintball shooting range and forest mini-train on the right. Queues for some projects are long on weekends. Walking inward on the left, you will find the special barbecue camping area and horse racing arena, which are very busy on weekends and holidays. Further inside is an artificial lake for boating, you can also take a zip line across the lake. The deep park is covered with forests and lawns, quiet for strolling or napping, you can see ships on Huangpu River at the southeast riverside. Small shops in the park sell drinks and snacks at slightly higher prices than outside, and in-park restaurants are relatively expensive, so bringing your own dry food is recommended. Diagonally opposite the South Gate lies the small Bamboo Garden scenic area, part of the park full of bamboo forests with classic Jiangnan small bridge and water views, accessible with the park ticket.