China - Beijing - Day 8

Today, we started at the Summer Palace. It’s pretty impressive and huge. I felt like there was a lot more to see since the last time we were there. However, it might be that it was summer, and we spent more time on a boat trip. These are running in February, as there is ice covering a lot of the lake.

The famous marble boat needed a refit, but everything else was in great condition.

Recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1998, the Summer Palace is famed the world over as a symbol of traditional imperial architecture and garden design. The Summer Palace is most famously associated with the Qing Dynasty’s Empress Dowager Cixi. Still, it has a history of more than 800 years as an imperial garden that dates back to the 1150s. The name of the Summer Palace in Chinese is Yiheyuan, which means garden of restful peace. The garden served as a suburban escape for the emperors, a peaceful retreat in the countryside that was still within easy access of the capital. The Summer Palace, in its present form, dates from the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) and became a public park in 1924.

For lunch, we had hot pot, so good.

In the afternoon, we went to the Llama Palace/Temple, which was crowded because it was a weekend.

Finally, we had a tea tasting—a good final day in Beijing.

• 
  ‹ ›
• 
  ‹ ›
• 
  ‹ ›
• 
  ‹ ›
• 
  ‹ ›
• 
  ‹ ›
• 
  ‹ ›
• 
  ‹ ›
• 
  ‹ ›
• 
  ‹ ›
• 
  ‹ ›
• 
  ‹ ›