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| Paddle boats on lake Kunming, Summer Palace |
The air was clear, a little overcast and perfect for a stroll around one of Beijing’s biggest attractions (720 acres), which is located 15km North West from the centre of Beijing.
Some of our colleagues have ventured there
in the spring and had highly recommended it (along with our Beijing guide
citing it as in the top five Beijing attractions!)
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| Around the man-made river there are many shops |
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| John in front of a palace |
In later years imperial gardens blossomed and the area was re-named ‘Garden of Clear Ripples’ as the current emperor built a whopping, giant man-made lake (about 520 acres) in the middle of the garden. As you do! All the excavated soil was piled and packed down then named Longevity Hill which is bejeweled with a number of grand buildings (the cloud-dispelling hall, Temple of Buddist virtue, Sea of Wisdom temple and the Tower of Buddist Essence).
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| A boat venturing off between the water lilies |
As we pumped it up the old stone steps of Longevity Hill it got hotter and hotter, the dry heat made it hard to breathe. But we continued, as we were on a mission to find the ancient ruins often talked about.
The Summer Palace has suffered two major attacks – during the Anglo-French invasion of 1860 and during the Boxer Rebellion (8 allied groups) in the 1900s. The garden was torched and many stone building destroyed. Since the destruction, the palaces have been under restoration.
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| Just posing in front of a small tree |
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| Pretty between the flowers |
After remembering that we actually live in a modern age, the GPS on our phones told us the Old Summer Palace was not far away - another 1.5kilometers to the west. So we exited the park and walked west stopping for a small lunch of local cold (but very spicy) rice noodles.
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| Was this an ancient bridge? |
We got into the Old Summer Palace park but couldn’t see any ruins! After walking over 12km in the heat and in our jandals we were exhausted, our legs ached our stomachs were grumbling and we had reached the end of our water supply.
Perhaps only through sheer stubbornness (on Kara’s behalf) we continued on, driven by the fact that after looking for these ruins for over 6 hours, surely we must stumble on them sometime soon??
Another 3km later winding around small lakes and over hills we found the ruins, behind a large fenced off area with a women demanding a ticket. Doh! Somehow we had missed the ticket office and had entered the main park unknowingly, without a ticket.
After some negotiation and an exchange of money, we entered the special area and explored the ruins of the Old Summer Palace.
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| This would have been a beautiful fountain |
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| Exploring the ancient ruins |
The existing ruins and remains of western mansions and 18th century European palaces, fountains and gardens were built by the Qianlong Emperor. The beautiful buildings were destroyed in 1860 during the second opium war.
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| Not much left of these buildings |
We didn't stay long, after a few photos our legs cried for fear of the additional 2km walk back to the subway so we slowly and painfully stumbled to the closest subway and headed home. It was a beautiful day and we felt so lucky to be outside enjoying China's fresh air with the other 38,000+ people enjoying the park that day!
Tot siens,
John and Kara
(a little more nature below).
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| A local butterfly resting its wings. |
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| Caught just at the right moment |
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| The surrounding park had stunning flowers |
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