Summer Palace

17 Arch Bridge
Originally uploaded by Peter Podstreleny.

On Friday I decided to visit Summer Palace (Yiheyuan) – on of the most visited sights in Beijing (voted as number 1 sight in Beijing). The reason was very simple. From Saturday onwards there in October national holiday in China and it lasts for one week – that means loads of tourists and not just from abroad but from different Chinese provinces as well (as they have time to come and visit Beijing). Secondly, I wanted to visit Summer Palace in the summer and there is just couple of weeks left with the warm summer weather.

Summer Palace is huge complex (it took me 5 hours to go through it and to visit all interesting and recommended places there) of palace temples, gardens, pavilions, corridors and huge lake (Kunming Lake) which served as an royal playground to imperial court during hot summer days (There is not a single tree in The Forbidden City and it gets really, really hot in summer there).

Kunming Lake is covering three-quarters of the whole area (you can take boat and enjoy summer palace from it). The main building in the whole area is the Hall of Benevolence and Longevity with hardwood throne inside (for emperor) and many bronze statues of animals in front of the building. There is very interesting statue of mythical animal called Qilin. Qilin is mixture of dragon, lion, ox and deer. According to the legend Qilin appears on the earth in times of harmony and it has power to punish evil and repel the wicked.

On the north of the lake there is so called Long Corridor which is beautiful wooden corridor (long path with beautifully painted wooden roof above it) which is connecting all important buildings on the north part of Summer Palace.

On the highest point of the Summer Palace (Longevity Hill) and above the Long Corridor there is a Buddhist Fragrance Pavilion and Cloud Dispelling Hall – two beautiful buildings which were unfortunately in the reconstruction when I was there, so they were closed (Beijing is getting ready for Olympic Games in 2008 and many historical buildings in Beijing are right now in the reconstruction). The building on the Longevity Hill which was opened was the Temple of the Sea of Wisdom with very old Buddha statues inside (this building is quite demolished and I think soon it will be closed and repaired as well).

Another beautifully thing in Summer Palace is 150 meters long 17-arch bridge which connects eastern part of Summer Palace with South Lake Island (Nanhu Dao) and marble boat which is huge ancient boat made out of the marble.

Summer Palace is very peaceful place with beautiful gardens inside and I got a luck that during my visit not many tourists were there, so I could really enjoy it.