Du Fu Thatched Cottage. Ding Hao

Du Fu Thatched Cottage, the Temple of Marquis Wu and Jinsha Site Museum are among the must-see sights for first-time visitors to Chengdu.

A thatched cottage in the western suburbs is the former residence of Du Fu (712-770), one of the three greatest Chinese poets of ancient times.

The site offers a traditional Chinese-style garden built where the poet lived.

Du has enjoyed lasting fame in China and his poems are included in textbooks and are prescribed readings for any foreign student majoring in Chinese literature.

Du lived in a period when one of China's most illustrious feudal dynasties was beginning a slide into decline.

A war fought by two rebel generals from 755 to 763 ravaged much of the country and accelerated the dynasty's degeneration.

Du, a native of Gongxian, Central China's Henan province, reached Chengdu in 759 to take refuge from the war. The following spring, he built a cottage by the Flower Bathing Brook with financial help from friends. He lived a peaceful life for about four years in the cottage, writing 240 of his existing 1,400 poems.

Du was a humanist. His writing style is revered both for its manifest sympathy for people's sufferings and resentment of injustice and corruption.