Big Wild Goose Pagoda (Dayan Ta) & North Square Fountain

Big Wild Goose Pagoda rises within the grounds of Da Ci'en Temple in Xi'an's Yanta District, a seven-story brick pagoda built in 652 AD to house Buddhist sutras and statues that the monk Xuanzang brought back from his overland journey to India. Visitors can climb the narrow interior staircase to the top level for views over the temple courtyards and the modern skyline beyond, passing carved stone lintels depicting Tang-dynasty architecture on the lower floors. The temple grounds around the pagoda include halls with gilded Buddha statues, incense burners, and a bell and drum tower, worth a slow walk before or after the climb. Most visitors spend 1-1.5 hours on the temple grounds and pagoda climb, then cross to the North Square in the early evening for the large musical fountain show, one of Asia's biggest, which runs on a seasonal schedule with shows roughly every hour after dusk. The square is framed by shops and restaurants and gets very crowded in the thirty minutes before each show starts, so arriving early to claim a spot near the fountain basin improves the view. Daytime crowds inside the temple are lighter on weekday mornings; the North Square, by contrast, is busiest in the evening regardless of day, since the fountain show is the main draw for both tourists and locals.