China Discovery Tour
Beijing | China
30 Dec 2019 | Mon
Day 03 of 18
Beijing Summer Palace

The Summer Palace is a vast ensemble of lakes, gardens, and palaces in Beijing. It was an imperial garden and a summer retreat for the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties. The palace is largely destroyed and rebuilt, with its largest reconstruction occurring in 1888. Today, it is a popular tourist destination in Beijing.
The Summer Palace covers an area of 2.9 square kilometers, three-quarters of which is water. The Kunming Lake, covering 2.2 square kilometers, was entirely man-made and the largest artificial lake in China at the time it was built.
The Summer Palace is renowned for its many beautiful features, including the Long Corridor, the Marble Boat, Seventeen-Arch Bridge, Longevity Hill and Yuquanshan Park. These features are all connected by a series of pathways that wind around the lake and through the hills.
Unfortunately, we visited the “Summer” Palace in the Winter (on a brutally cold day), but we found the Summer Palace to be a beautiful place full of history and culture. It is definitely worth a visit if you are ever in Beijing..