Basically, on the 15th we took in the following highlights in this order : Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, rickshaw tour of the ancient town Hutong, Beijing Zoo to see the Pandas and Imperial Summer Place.
Tom felt, as did most first visitors , upon witnessing in person the sights of Tiananmen and FB City, that it was difficult not to be awestruck and impressed by their sheer size and scale. Throughout the guided tour, we heard astounding tales of what length it took for one man to hold on to power over the dominions.
Forbidden City, esp its centre gold gilded pavilion - Hall of Supreme Harmony represented the seat of heavenly anointed power, a place of 3000 concubines and several hundred eunuchs all to service one man! There were likewise sprinkling of interesting anectodal stories about the Empress Dowager (Cixi T'ai Hou), the grandmother the last emperor, Pu Yi.
The rickshaw tour of Hutong was fun & scenic around the lake but we found it incredulous that the price per square meter of living space in Hutong was $10,000 US. A small residential space tightly fitting 4 families with a central courtyard would cost over $3M US, if you could get one, as they were reserved for older residential families that had the land prior to 1949 or higher ranking officials.
Summer Palace - a site of unimaginable beauty & serenity...unimaginable as you'd have to imagine the place without thick throngs of tourists jostling for a picture taking opportunity...lol .Seriously though you'd actually have to reel back to an era prior to the European invasions ...1709 to 1860 - "it was the grandest imperial garden with over 1,000 palaces, 100 viewing points, and thousands of treasures, covering an area of 350 hectares. It embodied the highest level of oriental fantasy art. "
For a historical perspective on the site :
https://theculturetrip.com/asia/china/articles/a-brief-history-of-the-old-summer-palace/
https://www.chinahighlights.com/beijing/attraction/old-summer-palace.htm
It's really a heart-wrenching site for all Chinese patriots for over a century now. The central lake (Kuming lake) is now left as the key tourist attraction for all visitors...yet the historical facts do tell of a time where it was dubbed "Versailles of the East". Yuanmingyuan's magnificence ceased abruptly in 1860 during the Second Opium War when British and French troops invaded Beijing, ransacked the Old Summer Palace and looted its treasure, which are now displayed in museums around the world.
The Old Summer Palace in actual fact covered an area of more than 3.5sq km which is 8 and 1/2 times the size of the Forbidden City!
Victor Hugo, the French author better known for The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Miserables, reflected on the disgrace in a letter in 1861. “One day two bandits entered the Summer Palace. One plundered, the other burned,” Hugo wrote. “And back they came to Europe, arm in arm, laughing away. We call ourselves civilised and them barbarians. This is what civilisation has done to the barbarians.”
The rickshaw tour of Hutong was fun & scenic around the lake but we found it incredulous that the price per square meter of living space in Hutong was $10,000 US. A small residential space tightly fitting 4 families with a central courtyard would cost over $3M US, if you could get one, as they were reserved for older residential families that had the land prior to 1949 or higher ranking officials.
Summer Palace - a site of unimaginable beauty & serenity...unimaginable as you'd have to imagine the place without thick throngs of tourists jostling for a picture taking opportunity...lol .Seriously though you'd actually have to reel back to an era prior to the European invasions ...1709 to 1860 - "it was the grandest imperial garden with over 1,000 palaces, 100 viewing points, and thousands of treasures, covering an area of 350 hectares. It embodied the highest level of oriental fantasy art. "
For a historical perspective on the site :
https://theculturetrip.com/asia/china/articles/a-brief-history-of-the-old-summer-palace/
https://www.chinahighlights.com/beijing/attraction/old-summer-palace.htm
It's really a heart-wrenching site for all Chinese patriots for over a century now. The central lake (Kuming lake) is now left as the key tourist attraction for all visitors...yet the historical facts do tell of a time where it was dubbed "Versailles of the East". Yuanmingyuan's magnificence ceased abruptly in 1860 during the Second Opium War when British and French troops invaded Beijing, ransacked the Old Summer Palace and looted its treasure, which are now displayed in museums around the world.
The Old Summer Palace in actual fact covered an area of more than 3.5sq km which is 8 and 1/2 times the size of the Forbidden City!
Victor Hugo, the French author better known for The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Miserables, reflected on the disgrace in a letter in 1861. “One day two bandits entered the Summer Palace. One plundered, the other burned,” Hugo wrote. “And back they came to Europe, arm in arm, laughing away. We call ourselves civilised and them barbarians. This is what civilisation has done to the barbarians.”
