Places to visit in Taipei: Yangmingshan National Park (陽明山國家公園)

Yangmingshan National Park is a nice place to visit if you are in Taipei and like nature. The mountain views provide a nice contrast if you've been in Taipei for a while and are sick of the cityscape. One of the things Yangmingshan is famous for are the calla lilies that grow particularly well in the mountain climate. Last time my family and I visited, we brought back a bouquet of calla lilies.

Unfortunately, the area in the mountains that is famous for calla lilies is quite commercialized in that there are a bunch of restaurants in the area. That's nice if you are hungry, but they kind of block the view of the lily fields from the road. So if you go by car, I would suggest parking on the side of the road and walking around on foot so that you can go look at some of the fields. Overall, 30-45 minutes is enough to see everything in the lily fields area, so I would suggest this as a stop on your visit to Yangmingshan, but don't plan on spending too much time there. The lily vendors do sell lots of other plants as well, some of which were quite exotic, at least for me.

Here's the Taipei city government website with information about the calla lilies of Yangmingshan. The page is about the flower festival, but the directions remain the same for non-festival times. The calla lily season is from January-May, but they do grow other flowers during other times of the year.

Here's a google map for a coffee shop the Zhuzihu area, which is where the calla lilies are grown: