My Cat Only Loves Me: Summer Palace

Our next stop on the our tour around Beijing, with me as the guide, brought Will, Jackie, and myself to the Summer Palace--the summer playground for the Chinese royal family.

the temple on the top of Longevity Hill

It is a stunning collection of pavilions stacked along and up into the landscape and I think my favorite place. Surrounding Lake Kunming, this is where the royal family would come to escape the heat of Beijing during the hot, humid summer months in China. At one time a royal garden, Emperor Qianlong (1711-99) set about turning it into a retreat fit for the son of heaven. A team of 100,000 laborers were enlisted to build beautifully landscaped pavilions, temples, gardens, corridors, and bridges, as well as a theater for Peking Opera.

One of the stunning features of the Summer Palace is the Long Corridor. Built in 1750 (and rebuilt in 1886 after Anglo-French forces burned it in 1860 during the second opium wars), the corridor is about 730 meters. It is the longest corridor in all of the Chinese classical gardens and has beams that depicts beautiful, tradition Chinese landscapes or stories from Chinese literary classics. At one end of the walkway is the Garden of Harmonies Virtue, which, when the peonies are in bloom, will be outrageously gorgeous; and at the other end. the Marble Boat, named such because the hull is made of marble.

Jackie and I in the corridor, facing the Garden of Harmonious Virtue

Will and I, looking towards the Marble Boat.

Half way along the Long Corridor is the jump off point to go up Longevity Hill. The most important sites in the Summer Palace are along this hill, which goes up and up with beautiful pavilions and temples.

gate in front of the Hall of Virtuous Light

various roof eaves looking up to the Lama Temple

Jackie, Will, and I climbed up the various stairs and through the open pavilions to reach the top of Longevity Hill. It was a bit rainy when we were there, so the views weren't so clear but you could imagine just how pretty it was to see the South Island and the 17-arch bridge on a sunny day.

a pavilion roof with the Dragon King Temple on the South Island

Glazed Tile Pagoda

The ferry, in front of the Dragon King Temple, that takes you from the Marble Boat to the South Island

roofs of the Hall of Virtuous Light

roof tile detail

lion guarding the Palace in one of the courtyards

glazed roof tile

Will and I in front of the Hall of Pines

wall detail

As you move up the hill, one of the buildings is the Hall of Pines, which is open and used for dancing in summer (on nice weather days). Continuing further up, there is the Hall of Virtuous Splendor, where the dowager empress would change for worship on her way to the Tower of Buddhist Incense.

As we got closer to the temple, there were three ladies sells toys and schmaltz. I managed to snap a photo of one of them and her wares before the Palace police ran her off, tearing up her maps and breaking some of her toys. Only authorized dealers are allowed to sell stuff within the Palace and she and her buddies were definitely not authorized. The police literally chased her away, both parties yelling at each other as they wound their way around the paths of the hill. It was a bit nuts. The other two ladies managed to run away faster, but this one got the brunt of the police action.

Da Vinci's Man

chrysanthemum tree along the trail

the three of us on our way down

glazed roof of the Pagoda of the Buddhist Virtue

roofs of the Bronze Pavilion

brushes, ink, and stamps

And yes, the Summer Palace is a UNSECO site. We managed to tick a few more off our list on this trip: the Summer Palace, the Great Wall, the Ming Tombs...