Sights in Běijīng
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Forbidden City
The Forbidden City, so-called because it was off-limits to most of the world for 500 years, is the best preserved cluster of ancient buildings in China. The old world of beautiful concubines and priapic emperors, ball-breaking (and broken) eunuchs and conspicuous wealth still hovers over the lush gardens, courtyards, pavilions and great halls of the palace.
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798 Art District
A disused and converted electronics factory built by the East Germans, 798 Art District is Běijīng’s leading concentration of contemporary art galleries. The industrial complex celebrates its proletarian roots in the communist heyday of the 1950s via retouched red Maoist slogans decorating gallery interiors and statues of burly, lantern-jawed workers. The voluminous factory workshops are ideally suited to art galleries that require space for multimedia installations and other ambitious projects. You could easily spend a day visiting the complex and its cafes and restaurants, making 798’s noncentral inaccessibility less of an inconvenience and more of an opportunity for an…
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Mùtiányù
Famed for its Ming-era guard towers and excellent views, the 3km-long section of wall at Mùtiányù, northeast of Běijīng in Huairou County, is largely a recently restored Ming dynasty structure that was built upon an earlier Northern Qi dynasty edifice. US President Bill Clinton came here (Reagan went to Bādálǐng), if that’s anything to go by. With 26 watchtowers, the wall is impressive and manageable, with most hawking reserved to the lower levels (hawkers go down to around Y15 for cotton ‘I climbed the Great Wall’ T-shirts) : the further you get away from Mùtiányù central the better. It’s actually possible to hike from Mùtiányù all the way west to H…
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Tiananmen Square
Flanked to the east and west by stern 1950s Soviet-style buildings and ringed by white perimeter fences that channel the hoi polloi towards periodic security checks and bag searches, the world’s largest public square (440,000 sq metres) is a vast desert of paving stones at the heart of Běijīng. The square is also a poignant epitaph to China’s hapless democracy movement, which got a drubbing from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in June 1989.
The designated points of access and occasional security checks immediately suggest that this is no Trafalgar Square. Unlike London’s famous plaza, Tiananmen Square is cut off somehow from the city – it is obsessively monitor…
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Summer Palace
The splendid regal encampment of the Summer Palace in the northwest of town is one of Běijīng’s must-see sights. Once a playground for the imperial court fleeing the insufferable summer torpor of the Forbidden City, today the palace grounds, its temples, gardens, pavilions, lakes, bridges, gate-towers and corridors are a marvel of imperial landscaping. Despite its size, half of China may seem to be visiting the palace grounds with you, so shun weekends and especially China’s ‘Gold Week’ holiday periods.
The site had long been a royal garden and was considerably enlarged and embellished by Qing emperor Qianlong in the 18th century. Enlisting 100,000 labourers, he…
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South Cathedral
Běijīng’s South Cathedral was built on the site of the house of Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci, who brought Catholicism to China. Since being completed in 1703, the church has been destroyed three times, including being burnt down in 1775, and endured a trashing by anti-Christian forces during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. The church is today decorated with modern stained glass, fake marbling, red carpets, portraits of the Stations of the Cross and cream-coloured confessionals, while black bibles in Chinese lie stacked about and the occasional local nun makes an appearance. All manner of crucifixes can be bought from the religious artefacts shop, near the statue of St Fran…
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Military Museum
From the humble swords and rifles of earlier eras, to the tanks and fighter planes of more modern times, as well as surface-to-air missiles, there’s enough hardware on display here to start WWIII. But despite the martial tone, this is one of Beijing’s more popular museums. The sections on China’s many wars are fascinating, although there’s a lack of English captions.
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Great Hall of the People
Home of the National People’s Congress, this intimidating, Stalinist-style colossus is open to the public when the Congress isn’t sitting or the bigwigs aren’t welcoming foreign heads of state. The compulsory bag check is Y2 to Y5.
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Temple of Heaven Park
With soothing music emanating from speakers mixing with birdsong, Temple of Heaven Park is a relaxing oasis of peace in one of China’s noisiest urban landscapes. Police whirr about in electric buggies as visitors stroll amid temple buildings and groves of ancient cypresses, planted in regular rows. The temple originally served as a vast stage for the solemn rites that were performed by the emperor, the Son of Heaven (天子; Tiānzǐ), as he sought good harvests, divine clearance and atonement for the sins of the people. The complex of halls is set in a 267-hectare park with gates at each point of the compass and bounded by walls.
The most perfect example of Ming archit…
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Old Summer Palace
Located northwest of the city centre, the original Summer Palace was laid out in the 12th century. The ever-capable Jesuits were later employed by Emperor Qianlong to fashion European-style palaces for the gardens, incorporating elaborate fountains and baroque statuary. During the Second Opium War, British and French troops torched and looted the palace, an event forever inscribed in Chinese history books as a nadir in China’s humiliation by foreign powers. Most of the wooden palace buildings were burned down in the process and little remains, but the hardier Jesuit-designed European Palace buildings were made of stone, and a melancholic tangle of broken columns and marbl…
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Gate of Heavenly Peace
Hung with a vast likeness of Mao, the double-eaved Gate of Heavenly Peace, north of Tiananmen Square, is a potent national symbol. Built in the 15th century and restored in the 17th century, the gate was formerly the largest of the four gates of the Imperial City Wall. Called Chéngtiān Mén during the Ming dynasty, it was renamed Tiānān Mén during Emperor Shunzhi’s reign in 1651. The gate is guarded by two pairs of Ming stone lions; one of the creatures apocryphally blocked the path of Li Chuangwang as he invaded Běijīng at the end of the Ming dynasty. Li fended the lion off by stabbing its belly with his spear while on horseback, leaving a mark that can still be s…
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Foreign Legation Quarter
The former Foreign Legation Quarter, where the 19th-century foreign powers flung up their embassies, schools, post offices and banks, lay east of Tiananmen Square. Stroll around Taijichang Dajie and Zhengyi Lu, which still suggest its former European flavour. On the northern corner of Taijichang Toutiao’s intersection with Taijichang Dajie survives a brick in the wall engraved with the road’s former foreign name: Rue Hart. The district was turned into a war zone during the famous legation siege during the Boxer Rebellion (1899–1901). Probably the greatest cultural loss was the torching of the Hanlin Academy, the centre of Chinese learning and literature. Ricalton note…
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Ancient Observatory
Stargazing is perhaps on the back foot in today’s Běijīng – it could take a supernova to penetrate the haze that frequently blankets the nocturnal sky – but the Chinese capital has a sparkling history of astronomical observation. The observatory is mounted on the battlements of a watchtower lying along the line of the old Ming City Wall and originally dates back to Kublai Khan’s days, when it lay north of the present site. Khan, like later Ming and Qing emperors, relied heavily on astrologers to plan military endeavours. The present observatory – the only surviving example of several constructed during the Jin, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties – was built between 1437 and 14…
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Bādàchù
With a profusion of monks and pilgrims and named after the eight nunneries and monasteries scattered through its attractive wooded valleys, Bādàchù (Eight Great Sites) is an attractive and invigorating hilly area. Topped with a glittering golden spire, the 13-eaved green-tiled brick Lingguang Temple Pagoda (Língguāng Sì Tǎ) is also called the Buddha’s Tooth Relic Pagoda; it was built to house a sacred tooth accidentally discovered when the allied powers demolished the place in 1900. Follow the path past the small Sanshan Nunnery (Sānshān Ān) to the Dabei Temple (大悲寺; Dàbēi Sì), famed for its 18 arhats in the Great Treasure Hall (Dàxióngbǎo Bǎodiàn), which were carved by L…
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Sīmǎtái
In Miyun County near the far-flung town of Gǔběikǒu near the Héběi border, the stirring remains at Sīmǎtái make for an exhilarating Great Wall experience. Built during the reign of Ming-dynasty emperor Hongwu, the 19km stretch is characterised by watchtowers, steep plunges and scrambling ascents. This rugged section of wall can be heart-thumpingly steep and the scenery is dramatic. Following the crowds to the wall, you have a choice: either head west for the hike (four hours one way) to Jīnshānlǐng or walk east as far as you can. The hike to Jīnshānlǐng makes the long journey out here worth it, but you will need to set off early in the morning; you can do the hike…
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Workers Cultural Palace
Despite the prosaic name and epicentral location at the very heart of town, this reclusive park, northeast of the Gate of Heavenly Peace, is one of Běijīng’s best-kept secrets, and a bargain to boot. Few visitors divert here from their course towards the main gate of the Forbidden City, but this was the emperor’s premier place of worship and contains the SupremeTemple ( 太庙; Tài Miào). If you find the Forbidden City either too colossal or crowded, the temple halls here are a cheaper, much more tranquil and far more manageable alternative. The huge halls of the temple remain, their roofs enveloped in imperial yellow tiles, beyond a quiet grove of ancient cypresses and…
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Fragrant Hills Park
Easily within striking distance of the Summer Palace are the Xī Shān (Western Hills), another former villa-resort of the emperors. The part of Xī Shān closest to Běijīng is known as Fragrant Hills (Xiāng Shān). Scramble up the slopes to the top of Incense-Burner Peak (Xiānglú Fēng), or take the chairlift (one way/return Y30/50; [hours]8.30am-5pm). From the peak you get an all-embracing view of the countryside, and you can leave the crowds behind by hiking further into the Western Hills. Beijingers flock here in autumn when the maple leaves saturate the hillsides in great splashes of red. Near the north gate of Fragrant Hills Park is the excellent Azure Clouds Temple (Bìyú…
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Beijing Zoo & Beijing Aquarium
Although not as pleasant as Shànghǎi’s green and wooded getaway, Beijing Zoo is a relaxing spot for a wander among the trees, grass and willow-fringed lakes, even if the creatures can be mere sideshows. Zoologically speaking, the well-housed pandas are the prime diversions, especially if you are not en route to the Sìchuān wilds. The remaining menagerie remains cooped up in pitiful cages and enclosures, with the polar bears pinning their hopes on gaining admission to the excellent Beijing Aquarium in the northeastern corner of the zoo. On view is an imaginative Amazon rainforest (complete with piranha), coral reefs, a shark aquarium (where you can dive with the fles…
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White Cloud Temple
White Cloud Temple, once the Taoist centre of northern China, was founded in AD 739, although most of the temple halls date from the Qing dynasty. The temple is a lively, huge and fascinating complex of shrines and courtyards, tended by Taoist monks with their hair gathered into topknots. Near the temple entrance, worshippers rub a polished stone carving for good fortune. The halls at the temple, centre of operations for the Taoist Quanzhen School and abode of the China Taoist Association, are dedicated to a host of Taoist officials and marshals. The Hall of the Jade Emperor celebrates this most famous of Taoist deities, while Taoist housewives cluster earnestly at the Ha…
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Beijing Botanic Gardens
Exploding with blossom in spring, these well-tended gardens, set against the backdrop of the Western Hills and about 1km northeast of Fragrant Hills Park, make for a pleasant outing among bamboo fronds, pines, orchids, lilacs and China’s most extensive botanic collection. Containing a rainforest house, the standout Beijing Botanical Gardens Conservatory (admission Y50; [hours] 8.30am-4pm) bursts with 3000 different varieties of plants. About a 15-minute walk from the front gate (follow the signs) within the grounds is the Sleeping Buddha Temple (Wòfó Sì; adult Y5; [hours] 8am-5pm). The temple, first built during the Tang dynasty, houses a huge reclining effigy of Sakyamun…
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Wanshou Temple & Beijing Art Museum
Ringed by a red wall, the Ming dynasty Wanshou Temple was originally consecrated for the storage of Buddhist texts. From Qing times the imperial entourage would put their feet up here and quaff tea en route to the Summer Palace. Wanshou Temple fell into disrepair during the Republic, with the Wanshou Hall burning down in 1937. Things went from bad to worse and during the Cultural Revolution the temple served as an army barracks.
The highlight of a visit to this restored temple is its prized collection of bronze Buddhist statuary in the 'Buddhist Art Exhibition of Ming and Qing Dynasties', located in halls on either flank just before the Mahavira Hall. The displays guide y…
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Imperial City Exhibition
Substantial portions of Běijīng survive solely in a twilight world of fading nostalgia. This fascinating museum is devoted to the Imperial City (Huáng Chéng), which – beyond its fragmented constituent parts – exists largely in name alone. The museum is within the Changpu River Park (Chāngpú Hé Gōngyuán), a delightful, if contrived, formula of marble bridges, rock features, paths, a stream, willows, magnolias, scholar and walnut trees north of Dongchang’an Jie. The museum functions as a memorial to the demolished imperial wall, gates and buildings of the Imperial City. A diorama in the museum reveals the full extent of the yellow-tiled Imperial City Wall, wh…
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Bird’s Nest & Water Cube
After the event, walking around the Olympic Sports Center midweek is rather like being stuck in a district of Brazilia or a soul-destroying intersection in Gattica or Alphaville. Traffic lights go red and there are no cars to stop; the green man flashes and there’s no one to cross the brand-spanking-new roads. It’s now hard to imagine that this was the scene of great sporting exultation in August 2008, but such is the fate of most Olympics projects. Squinting in the sun, guards in ill-fitting black combat gear point the occasional group of map-clutching tourists to the Water Cube and the signature National Stadium, which is more colloquially known as the Bird’s Nest. Ente…
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Front Gate
Front Gate actually consists of two gates. The northernmost of the two gates is the 40m-high Zhengyang Gate ( 正阳门城楼; Zhèngyáng Mén Chénglóu), which dates from the Ming dynasty and was the largest of the nine gates of the Inner City Wall separating the inner, or Tartar (Manchu), city from the outer, or Chinese, city. Partially destroyed in the Boxer Rebellion around 1900, the gate was once flanked by two temples that have since vanished. With the disappearance of the city walls, the gate sits out of context, but it can be climbed for views of the square. Similarly torched during the Boxer Rebellion, the Zhengyang Gate Arrow Tower ( 正阳门箭楼; Zhèngyángmén Jiànló…
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Jinshanling
The Jinshanling Great Wall, near the town of Gǔběikǒu, marks the starting point of an exhilarating 10km hike to Sīmǎtái. The adventure – winding through stunning mountainous terrain – takes around four hours as the trail is steep and parts of the wall have collapsed, but it can be traversed without too much difficulty. Note that the watchtowers are in various states of preservation and some have been stripped of their bricks. Autumn is the best season for the hike; in summer you’ll be sweating gallons so load up with water before you go (ever-present hawkers on the wall sell pricey water for around Y10 a bottle, or more depending on how thirsty you appear). To comme…
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