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Dongyue Temple
The morbid Taoist shrine of Dongyue Temple is an unsettling albeit fascinating experience. With its roots poking deep into the Yuan dynasty, what's above ground level has been revived with care and investment. Dedicated to Tài Shān, the most easterly of the five Taoist peaks of China, Dongyue Temple is an active place of worship where Taoist monks attend to a world entirely at odds with the surrounding glass and steel high rises.
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Drum Tower
The Drum Tower was first built in 1272 and marked the centre of the old Mongol capital Dàdū. Originally constructed of wood, the structure went up in flames and was rebuilt in 1420, since then it has been repeatedly destroyed and restored. Stagger up the incredibly steep steps for wide-ranging views over Běijīng's rooftops. The drums of this later Ming dynasty version were beaten to mark the hours of the day - in effect the Big Ben of Běijīng.
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Duan Gate
Sandwiched between the Gate of Heavenly Peace and Meridian Gate, Duan Gate was stripped of its treasures by foreign forces quelling the Boxer Rebellion. The hall today is hung with photos of old Běijīng. Steer your eyes to the ceiling's wonderful original painted colours, free of the cosmetic improvements so casually inflicted on many of China's other historic monuments - including the slap-dash red paintwork on the exterior walls of Duan Gate.
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Fayuan Temple
In a lane east of Niujie Mosque, this temple dates back to the 7th century and remains busy with monks and worshippers. Now the China Buddhism College, the temple was built to honour Tang soldiers who had fallen during combat against the northern tribes. From the entrance of Niujie Mosque, walk left 100m then turn left into the first hútòng . Follow the hútòng for about 10 minutes, and you'll arrive at Fayuan Temple.
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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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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.
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Fragrant Hills Park
Near the Summer Palace are the Xī Shān (Western Hills), former villa-resort of the emperors. The part of Xī Shān closest to Běijīng is known as Fragrant Hills. Scramble up the slopes to Incense-Burner Peak (Xiānglú Fēng), or take the chairlift, for an all-embracing view of the countryside. Běijīngers flock here in autumn when the maple leaves saturate the hillsides in great splashes of red.
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Front Gate
Front Gate actually consists of two gates. The northernmost of the two gates, the 40m-high Zhengyang Gate (正阳门; Zhèngyáng Mén) 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.
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Gate Of Heavenly Peace
Hung with a vast likeness of Mao, the double-eaved Gate of Heavenly Peace is a potent national symbol. Built in the 15th century and restored in the 17th century, the gate was the largest of the four gates of the Imperial City Wall. Today's political coterie watch mass troop parades from here, and it was from this gate that Mao proclaimed the People's Republic on 1 October 1949. Climb up for excellent views of Tiananmen Square.
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Great Bell Temple
This temple houses the biggest bell in China, 6.75m tall and weighing a hefty 46.5 tonnes. The bell is inscribed with Buddhist sutras, comprising more than 227,000 Chinese characters, and decorated with Sanskrit incantations. Clamber up to the circular hall, where there's a small exhibition on bell casting (with some English captions), and chuck a coin through the opening in the top of the bell for luck.
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Great Hall Of The People
The Great Hall of the People is the seat of the legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC). The 1959 architecture is monolithic and intimidating, and a fitting symbol of China's remarkable political inertia. The tour parades past a choice of lifeless rooms named after the provinces that constitute the Chinese universe. The ticket office is down the south side of the building. Bags need to be checked in but cameras are admitted.
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Huguang Guild Hall
Dating to 1807. this theatre is decorated like the Zhengyici Theatre, with balconies surrounding the canopied stage. It is here that the Kuomintang, led by Dr Sun Yat-sen, was established in 1912. The interior is magnificent, coloured in red, green and gold, and decked out with tables and a stone floor. There's also a very small opera museum (around Y10 ) opposite the theatre displaying operatic scores, old catalogues and other paraphernalia.
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Imperial Archives
The old Imperial Archive is the former repository for the imperial records, decrees, the 'Jade Book' (the imperial genealogical record) and huge encyclopaedic works, including the Yongle Dadian and the Daqing Huidian . You can peer through the closed door and make out the chests in which the archives were stored. With strong echoes of the splendid imperial palace, the courtyard contains well-preserved halls and the Wan Fung Art Gallery.
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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 one of the city's most splendid creations: the Imperial City (皇城; Huáng Chéng), which - beyond its fragments - exists in name alone. The museum is the centrepiece of the only extant chunk of the Imperial City Wall, which once encompassed a chunk of Běijīng nearly seven times the size of the Forbidden City.
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Jingshan Park
Known as Coal Hill by Westerners during legation days, Jingshan Park was shaped from the earth excavated to create the moat of the Forbidden City. The hill supposedly protects the palace from the evil spirits - or dust storms - from the north. Clamber to the top for a magnificent panorama of the capital and princely views over the russet roofing of the Forbidden City.
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Lama Temple
With three richly worked archways and five main halls (each one taller than the preceding one), revolving prayer wheels, multi-coloured glaze tiles, magnificent Chinese lions, tantric statuettes and hall boards decorated with Mongolian, Manchu, Tibetan and Chinese, the Lama Temple is Běijīng's most magnificent Buddhist temple.
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Lao She Museum
This modest courtyard museum is dedicated to one of Běijīng's most popular 20th-century writers. Author of Rickshaw Boy and Tea House, and former teacher at London's School of Oriental and African Studies, Lao She (1899-1966) tragically committed suicide by throwing himself into a Běijīng lake during the Cultural Revolution (whispers of murder continue).
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Lu Xun Museum
Lu Xun (1881-1936), born in Shàoxīng in Zhèjiāng province, is often regarded as the father of modern Chinese literature. As a writer, Lu Xun, who first trained in medicine, articulated a deep yearning for reform by mercilessly exposing the foibles of the Chinese people's character. Hampered by a shortage of English captions, the museum's collection of photos and manuscripts remains largely impenetrable to all but the most erudite.
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Mao Dun Former Residence
Deep in the heart of the historic hútòng quadrant southeast of the Drum and Bell Towers is this small and unassuming museum. Mao Dun was the pen name of Shen Yanbing (1896-1981), who was born into an elite family in Zhèjiāng province but educated in Běijīng. In 1920 he helped found the Literary Study Society, an association promoting literary realism. The museum is typically parsimonious and low-key.
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Mei Lanfang Former Residence
Place of pilgrimage for Beijing opera aficionados, this former sìhéyuàn (courtyard house) of actor Mei Lanfang is tucked away in a hútòng named after the nearby remains of Huguo Temple. Beijing opera was popularised in the West by Mei Lanfang (1894-1961). His former residence has been preserved as a museum, replete with costumes, furniture, opera programmes and video presentations of his opera performances.
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Miaoying Temple White Dagoba
The Yuan dynasty white dagoba of the Miaoying Temple is similar to that in Beihai Park. The highpoint of a visit here, however, is its riveting collection of thousands of Tibetan Buddhist statues. A population of bronze luóhàn figures also inhabits the temple. There is liberal use of English captions.
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Military Museum
This hulking monolith of a building topped with a communist star is purely for military enthusiasts. Cold War-era F-5 fighters, the much larger F-7 and F-8s, tanks, and HQ-2 (Red Flag-2) surface-to-air missiles are down below, while upstairs bristles with further weaponry and a heavy-going gallery of statues of military and political top brass. In the forecourt you can clamber aboard a missile boat for around Y5 ).
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Ming City Wall Ruins Park
Topped with saplings, trees and a healthy head of vegetation, the last surviving slice of the Ming Inner City Wall (originally 40km in length) runs along the length of the northern flank of Chongwenmen Dongdajie, attached to a slender and pleasant strip of park. Levelled in the 1950s to facilitate transport and compromise the legacies of earlier dynasties, the city wall is perhaps Běijīng's most conspicuous chunk of lost heritage.
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Monument to the People's Heroes
North of Mao's mausoleum, the Monument to the People's Heroes was completed in 1958. The 37.9m-high obelisk, made of Qīngdǎo granite, bears bas-relief carvings of key patriotic and revolutionary events (such as Taiping rebels and Lin Zexu destroying opium at Hǔmén in the 19th century), and appropriate calligraphy from communist bigwigs Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. Mao's eight-character flourish proclaims 'Eternal Glory to the People's Heroes'.
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Niujie Mosque
With a history dating back to the 10th century, this recently renovated Chinese-styled mosque is Běijīng's largest. A burial site for a number of Islamic clerics, the grounds of the mosque are given over to a profusion of greenery, flourishes of Arabic, the main prayer hall (only Muslims can enter), women's quarters and the Building for Observing the Moon (Wàngyuèlóu), from where the lunar calendar was calculated.
