During our first two days in the Huangshan region, our travel agent set us up in a rural boutique hotel called Pig’s Inn Bishan. This is the second of three “Pig’s Inn” hotels. The story we were told is that the first one was a home owned by a Shanghai businessman who didn’t like to come to the country, so he abandoned it, it fell into ruin, and eventually was used as a pig sty by the owner’s relatives. An entrepreneur came along, thought it would make a charming inn, so he bought it and renovated it and kept its history alive in the name. It was successful, so he bought and converted two more properties in the area and converted them to Pig’s Inns as well!
Trevis and I both loved our stay there. Before check-in we’d spent the day touring UNESCO World Heritage Hongcun Village with its historic buildings all built in the same style, two stories, white walls and black tiled roofs, each with a courtyard entrance with rooms to the sides and back. Pig’s Inn is an old home built in the same style. It is pretty unassuming from the outside, but it feels like stepping into history when you walk inside. I found it charming.
We were there in the middle of the week during the shoulder season, and were the only guests, so we felt free to spread out beyond our room and really take advantage of some of the common spaces to lounge, work on our photos, and do some morning yoga. There are several dining areas, a library (books all in Mandarin), comfortable seating, some board games, and tea sets and a beverage cooler (from which we enjoyed a few beers) all easily accessible. It was easy to feel right at home.
There’s really not much else in the village as far as restaurants, so we had both breakfast and dinner each day at the inn, and it was delicious. After dinner our first evening, Trevis wanted to make sure not to eat much at lunch the next day so he would have plenty of appetite to enjoy dinner at our inn the second night!
