On a Nov Saturday around noon, we drove from Nanjing to Qixia Temple for a visit. We drove there in cabs with a private guide. The site is a grouping of temples, statues, lakes at the base of a mountain and then roads and stairs to the top of the mountain. The site has a long, storied history but it is also obvious they have made investments in the roads, paths, landscaping, and bathrooms recently. The site is very popular and it was crushed with people when we were there. This made hiking on some of the paths less enjoyable but it was still worth going. We have lived in China long enough as expats to be used to it :). Basically, if you do it all, you will pass a bunch of rougher restaurants and shops outside of park, pay for tickets at the gate, walk through a lot of temples and around lakes, hike up the mountain posing for pictures with all the Japanese red maples, and take pictures from the summit. The view from the summit is very impressive. You can see large portions of the Yangtze River with hundreds of ships as well as a huge bridge. There is an option to take a tram down from mountain if you’ve had enough hiking. All in all, I thought it was a good site for half day visit but if I went again I would try to time it where there would be less people there. Other tips - we had a personal guide and still had some trouble getting a cab to the metro station after we were done. Having a guide is useful here for sure

Incredible Buddha statues near temple with the option of climbing the rest of the mountain. If you do not wish to climb you can take a tram around the mountain. Not sure I would recommend bringing elderly who can not walk very well here though as it is a little steep and uneven pathway.