Taipei Classic Temple Half-Day Tour
Visiting Taipei for the first time and want to see its temples? This is the route. Start your morning at Longshan Temple, the city's most celebrated temple with nearly 300 years of incense smoke and some of Taiwan's finest carving craftsmanship. In the afternoon, head to the Xia-Hai City God Temple on Dihua Street — its Matchmaker God (Yue Lao) is so famous that travelers fly in from Japan and Korea just to pray for love. End the day strolling Dadaocheng's heritage street with a coffee and some local goods. Both temples are free to enter, and everything is reachable by MRT.
🚇 Entirely by MRT + walking. Grab an EasyCard at any station — it works on all trains and buses.
🙏 Pray for: Safety, health, and love — Guanyin and the Matchmaker God are both here
Founded in 1738, Manka Longshan Temple is Taipei's oldest and most internationally renowned temple. Its stone pillars, woodwork, and jiannian mosaic roof are considered the pinnacle of Taiwanese temple artistry. The main hall honors Guanyin (the Bodhisattva of Compassion), while the rear hall houses Yue Lao, the Matchmaker God — Buddhist and Taoist deities under one roof, which is exactly how folk religion works in Taiwan.
💡 First time at a Taiwanese temple? Read our Temple Visiting Guide first: enter through the Dragon Gate (right side), exit through the Tiger Gate (left side), and always step OVER the threshold, never on it. Photos are fine inside, but skip the flash and avoid pointing your camera at people who are praying.
🙏 Pray for: Love and marriage (Taiwan's most famous Matchmaker), plus career luck
The Xia-Hai City God Temple on Dihua Street is tiny — under 165 square meters — yet it is Taiwan's most famous temple for praying for love. Its Yue Lao is credited with thousands of successful matches every year and has been featured repeatedly in Japanese media. The temple provides prayer instructions in English, Japanese, and Chinese, so you can follow along even without knowing a word of Mandarin.
💡 Praying to Yue Lao has its own ritual (the temple has an illustrated guide): purchase the offering set with the red thread, introduce yourself to Yue Lao and describe the partner you hope to meet, then keep the red thread with you. Already have a partner? Thank Yue Lao and pray for a lasting relationship instead.
Hour-by-Hour Plan
- 09:30 Longshan Temple (Guanyin & Yue Lao)
- 10:45 Stroll Bopiliao Historic Block next door — preserved Qing-dynasty street houses
- 12:00 Lunch around Huaxi Street: pepper buns, squid thick soup, and other local snacks
- 13:30 MRT from Longshan Temple Station to Beimen Station (about 15 minutes)
- 14:00 Xia-Hai City God Temple (City God & Yue Lao)
- 15:00 Dihua Street: dried goods shops, Chinese medicine halls, indie stores and heritage-house cafés
- 16:30 Finish at Dadaocheng Wharf with a view over the Tamsui River
What to Eat Nearby
🍜 Manka — Huaxi Street Old-Taipei Eats
Step out of Longshan Temple and you're in the oldest quarter of Manka, right beside Huaxi Street Night Market. This stretch is old Taipei in miniature — sesame-oil pork kidney, oyster vermicelli, old-fashioned sweet soups, much of it from shops that have kept the same flavors for decades. A bowl here after the temple is a taste of a century of Wanhua street life.
🍜 Dadaocheng — Cisheng Temple Courtyard Food Street
Over in Dadaocheng, beyond the dried-goods shops of Dihua Street, those in the know turn into the food street in front of Cisheng Temple. Tables and chairs are set out in a long row under an old banyan tree — fried snacks, fish soup, pork-rib soup with a bowl of rice. It is one of the few places left in Taipei where you can eat quietly in a temple courtyard's shade, and it suits a solo traveler well.
📝 Both temples are free to enter with no reservation needed. There is no strict dress code, but avoid overly revealing clothing out of respect. Incense and offerings can be purchased at the temples (Longshan Temple has phased out incense burning — praying with palms together is the norm there). For the full etiquette walkthrough, see our Temple Visiting Guide.