Well this was one of the places in China I travelled to which surprised me the most. It is also known as Tiantan (Tian tan). It felt unreal that a 20 minute walk from mayhem Beijing you could enter a world of peace and paradise. It was massive defiantly bigger than the Forbidden City, and was great as had lots of open space and was a great place to go to, to get away from the hustle and bustle of Beijing.

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