Summer Palace

Summer Palace is called Yíhé Yuan in Chinese. Yíhé Yuán can be translated into Gardens of Nurtured Harmony.

History

Summer Palace Summer Palace was originally built in the Jin dynasty around the year 1200, and during Qing dynasty (1644-1911) it had developed into a luxurious park, where the imperial families could spend their summers. The Summer Palace is a little higher than the Beijing city so the temperature is slightly lower during the summer. It was damaged by the Anglo-French alliance in 1860 when they invaded China. It took six years to rebuild the palace. In 1900, it was destroyed again when Beijing was invaded by the 8 countries alliance from Britain, France, Russia, Germany, Japan, USA, Italy and Austria. Chinese reconstructed again in 1902.

Empress Cixi moved in to the Summer Palace in 1888 and it is said that she spent 30 million Taelen silver (equivalent to approximately 1,200 tonnes of silver) to renovate and expand the palace. The money was actually part of the defense budget and would have been used to expand the Chinese navy fleet.

The last Emperor Puyi was driven out in 1911 and in 1924 the palace opened to the public.

Kunming Lake

Kunming is a large artificial lake in the middle of the park. It was used as a reservoir for drinking water and irrigation, and there were 10,000 workers digging the lake. The lake is 0.8 square miles big and takes up about three-quarters of the entire park area. The lake is actually quite shallow; the average depth is 5 feet.

Kunming Lake has three main islands, and they are called Nanhu, Tuancheng and Zaojian.

17 arches bridge

17 arches bridge is the largest bridge in the Kunming Lake and connects the island Nanhu with the eastern shore. It is 150 meters long and 8 meters wide. On the railing of the bridge which is made of marble, there are 544 different lion sculptures in various postures. The bridge has 9 arches from both sides to the middle. 17 in all if you count from side to side. 9 was the empresses most important number so you can see that number appearing in a lot of different contexts.

Longevity Hill

Longevity, which is “Wan Shou” in Chinese and means long life, is a large hill in the park, although it is artificial.

The long corridor

The long corridor was built in 1750 and is a 2300 feet long covered walkway made from wood. It lies just in the middle of the park. It is decorated with over 14,000 different paintings depicting the Chinese mythology. The Long Corridor was damaged during the invasion in 1860 and it took many years to renovate it.