It was inscripted by UNESCO in 1998 as a world heritage centre and the following is taken from their site;

Justification for Inscription
Criterion i: The Summer Palace in Beijing is an outstanding expression of the creative art of Chinese landscape garden design, incorporating the works of humankind and nature in a harmonious whole. Criterion ii: The Summer Palace epitomizes the philosophy and practice of Chinese garden design, which played a key role in the development of this cultural form throughout the East. Criterion iii: The imperial Chinese garden, illustrated by the Summer Palace, is a potent symbol of one of the major world civilizations.

The Summer Palace is approximately 20 km north west of Beijing and covers an area of around 3 km (290 hectares) and has over 3,000 individual buildings. The main parts of the Summer Palace are “Longevity Hill”, “Kunming lake” and “The Long Corridor”.

Longevity Hill has all the best buildings to look at. “The Cloud-Dispelling Hall”, “Temple of Buddhist Virtue” and the “Sea of Wisdom Temple” are all located here.

And perhaps the biggest man made lake ive seen is “Kunming Lake”. Well it started as a natural lake around 3,500 years ago and takes up about ¾s of the total area. You can also take boat trips around the lake and if its cold enough you can go ice skating. Belive me its hard to imagein as when I was here it was 40 degrees!

The last of the main attractions so to speak is the Long Corridor. It is about 250 m long and is parrallel to Kunning lake. This is also the longest path in the garden and has nearly 15000 Chinese paintings!

Be careful when leaving the Summer Palace as there are TWO exits. Or two entrances depending on how you look at it The exits are the East Palace Gate and the North Palace Gate. I think most people seemed to enter from the East gate.

The Summer Palace, Beijing, Travel Photos

You can see the Temple of Heaven just beyond the entrance. I didn’t want to show another photo of the actual Temple of Heaven on my travel blog as I’m sure you’ve all seen it before. So thought this was a welcoming change. Other parts of interest were the Echo Wall, The Round Altar and the Imperial Vault of Heaven.

This Echo wall is around 65 metres in diameter and if two people stand opposite each other on the other sides of the wall, you can hear the other whispering. Obviously you need to try it when there isn’t 50 other people trying the same!

The Round Altar is a raised platform about 5m high, and is made from a series of raising circle platforms. The top piece has one slightly higher circular stone, which is surrounded by circles of 9 other stone pieces. Everything here basically consists of multiples of 9. From rows of stones to staircases. This was because Chinese believe that odd numbers are somehow heavenly, and 9 is the highest singular odd number so is thought to be the most heavenly.

If I remember correctly The Temple of Heaven park was open from 6am to 9pm, and the actual sights open from 8am-6pm. And cost about Y30 to get in.

My Temple of Heaven travel photos

Beijing is without a doubt the busiest place I have been to, including Hong Kong. It is situated in the Scandinavian part of China. Beijing city has an area of about 17²km with a population of 14 million people. Now that is big! A quarter of the UK in one city!!!

Beijing is the capital of China and is the centre of their political, economic and cultural world. Beijing plays a very important part to the education of the Chinese with the best universities in Beijing.

My flight to Beijing was pretty good, I flew with British Airways and received excellent service, but as usual still became uncomfortable after a while if only I could have flown to Beijing first class. Just reminded myself I have travelled first class with Emirates to the Maldives which was amazing. But this was a cheap flight, as had many others to pay for. Arriving at Beijing airport I was immediately hassled for money from the toilet cleaners, needless to say I didn’t give them anything I had just paid a fortune for the ticket.

Anyway I stayed in the Beijing Far East International Youth Hostel which was really nice, I also got to stay in their Beijing hotel opposite! I Couldn’t stay in youth hostels the whole time.

Now my lunch is over so I had better get back to work and finish this later.

Beijing Travel Photos

There was a very interesting documentary on the Tiananmen Square Massacre on More4 last week called “Tank Man”.

Well Tiananmen Square is a very recent addition to Beijing, traditionally places where the public could gather were traditionally never built. Unfortunately its construction meant the destruction of some of the walls of the Forbidden City. This area used to be used for Chinese imperial offices which were inside the walls of the Forbidden City and were also connected to the Temple of Heaven and the palace. Tiananmen meaning “The Gate of Heavenly Peace” is the original entrance to the Imperial Palace, generally known as the Forbidden City. It was originally built in 1417 and was also burned down a few times, and its most recent incarnation was built in 1651.

Most notably it is a world recognised symbol of where Mao Tse-tung laid the cornerstone on September 30, 1949, a day before the official establishment of the People’s Republic of China. The location was chosen to represent a break with the feudal dynastic past by being in the middle of the old imperial pathway.

There is an excellent book on Mao called Mao: The Unknown Story ~ Jung Chang, Jon Halliday.

The 40m monument Renmin Yinxiong Jinian Bei which was completed in 1958, (Monument to the People’s Heroes) sits in the middle of Tiananmen Square. Which was made to respect the Chinese who died in the struggle to make China an independent nation before the Communists came to govern, it has also acted as a lightning rod for opposition. After the Falungong demonstrations, it was cordoned off from the public.

At the base of this monument are eight 2m tall panels depicting influential events in the Communist interpretation of Chinese history between 1839 and 1949 which are amusing to say the least!

Tiananmen Square, Beijing – Travel Photos