The Great Wall of China was built in the year 200 BC by the first emperor of China, Shi Huangdi. He built it to protect himself from enemies. The wall was reinforced during the Ming dynasty, between the years 1400-1600 and was in all about 3700 miles long.

Most of the wall is more or less decayed and gone today, but there are several sections north of Beijing that is well preserved and even restored to new condition.

Badaling

Most tourists visit Badaling, which is located about 50 miles northwest of Beijing. It was renovated during the 50’s and was the first section of the wall which was made available for tourists. It is quite easy accessible from Beijing, which means it gets flooded by tourists. It can be quite annoying to continuously defend oneself from approaching sales persons, which always appears where tourists go. Yet, it is a nice stretch of the wall.

Mutianyu

Mutianyu is located about 45 miles northeast of Beijing and is also renovated. Not as many people go there as to Badaling, but almost.

There are also a lot of sales people here, but it is probably not the right place to shop if you want to make a good deal. They don’t have anything unique there that can’t be found everywhere else.

Simatai

Simatai ought to be the best part of the Great Wall, and is located about 80 miles northeast of Beijing, where the landscape is very dramatic. The wall is at times very steep, almost vertical in places. It was originally built in the 6th century, but was reinforced in the 16th century. It has not been renovated since then, and you can still see damages from wars on the wall. A lot of people choose to walk on top of the wall between Simatai and Jinshanling, but you need to have in mind that it can be very strenuous due to the steepness of the wall. The wall is built on top of the mountains, and it can be quite hard work just to get to it. However, a healthy person could do it without any bigger problems. There are stairs with railings all the way up, so you don’t need to walk on trails. For the lazy one’s, there is a cable car from the valley all the way to the wall.

Is it possible to see the Great Wall from the moon?

No, it is not. The wall is only about 12-24 feet wide and it would be impossible to see it from the moon, without a very strong telescope. If any of this website’s visitors go to the moon, please report to us if you saw the Great Wall or not.

However, it might be possible to see the Great Wall from space. Space actually begins just a few miles above the Earth’s surface. From there it might be easier to spot the wall, but you would also see all the roads, and what is what… But you would still need a telescope.

The Forbidden City was the emperors’ palace during the Ming and Qing dynasties. The area within the walls is 7.7 million square feet and there are 800 buildings with a total of 8000 rooms. The Forbidden City is the world’s largest collection of preserved ancient buildings and is on UNESCO World Heritage List.

The Forbidden City is located in the center of Beijing, just north of Tiananmen Square. There are two entrances for tourists, one from Tiananmen Square and one on the north side near Beihai Park.

The Forbidden City is restored thoroughly and it takes a lot of time. Many parts inside are blocked for tourists but there is still a lot to see. They do have 8000 rooms… They say it takes 10 years for the workers to repair through the whole area and when they are done, it is time to start over again.

The project of the Forbidden City started in 1406 and it took 14 years for 200,000 Chinese workers to finish it. All the soil they got from digging the moat was put in a big pile outside the north exit. It became a big hill called Jingshan. When the last emperor Puyi left his throne in 1912, it was the end for the city as the imperial palace. Until then, there had been 24 different emperors living inside.

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.

Temple of Heaven is a park with Taoist buildings and temples, and is located in southeast Beijing. It began to be built in the year 1420 and subsequently used by the Ming and Qing dynasties to worship heaven.

The most famous temple, which can be seen on all postcards and tourist advertisement of Beijing, is The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. It’s a circular building built on a base of three levels of marble stone. Emperors came here to pray for good harvests.

The emperor was considered to be the son of heaven in ancient China, and they had to take care of any problems on the earth on behalf of a heavenly authority. In order to show respect, it was very important to sacrifice to heaven. The temple was constructed for these celebrations.

The Ming Tombs are a group of buildings but each of the tombs is independent and has its own characteristic style. Each grave is built at the foot of a hill and the distance between the graves are between 1600 feet and 5 miles.

It has been more than 500 years since the tombs were built but they are extremely well preserved. It shows not only how luxurious emperors lived, but is also of great importance to the archeologists that everything remains just as when it was built.

Beihai Park is located northwest of the Forbidden City and it is a traditional Chinese park with a long history that starts in the 10th century. During the Qing dynasty it was a part of the Forbidden City and since 1925 it has been open to the public.

The park is 7.5 million square feet big and more than half of the park is covered with water. In the middle of the park there is an island called Qionghua. A 420 feet white-stone building stands on top of the island; the well-know Bei Ta. In 1679 it was destroyed by an earthquake but was rebuilt the following year. In 1976 it once more collapsed because of an earthquake, so the present version is not so old. Inside the tower are Buddhist writings, a blanket, a bowl for alms, and pieces of bones from monks that have been left after they were burned.

On the northern shore there is a nine-dragon-wall, which is called Jiu Long Bi in Chinese. It was built in 1756 and is one of three walls of the same kind in China. The wall is decorated on both sides with nine dragons playing in the clouds.

Beihai Park is a very nice park, well worth a visit. However, it can be quite crowded, so you should avoid it on any Chinese public holiday.

Ye San Po is popular among Chinese people, even if more and more foreign tourists also begin to find it there.

To come to the top of the mountain you need to walk in a staircase with a few thousand steps. There is also a cable for the feeble.

The area is really recommended for its natural beauty and we recommend that you devote a whole day for a visit, also considering that the journey there takes a relatively long time.

Tiananmen Square is a large square in the middle of Beijing, which received its name from Tiananmen gate at the northern end of the square. The square has a great cultural significance in China where it has been the site of many historic events, including founding the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949. For us in the West, the square is probably best known for the massacre which took place June 4, 1989 after a long period of demonstrations. Hundreds or even thousands of students were shot by the military in or around the square.

Tiananmen Square was built in 1417 during the Ming dynasty. It was renovated and received its present name during the Qing dynasty in 1699, and the square has been as it is today since 1949.

The square is 880 meters long and 500 meters wide, a total of 440,000 square meters, making it the world’s largest square in the city.
On the square stands the 38-meter-high monument for the people’s heroes and even Mao Zedong mausoleum.

The underground city is located 45 miles north of Beijing city and had a militarily important strategic location during the war. During the Japanese invasion of China in 1938, the villagers built an underground system of tunnels to escape the Japanese who killed and burned everything in their path. The system of tunnel is in all 10 miles long and is built to cope with flood, smoke and gas attacks and fires.

The original tunnel was only just two feet high, so it was impossible to walk in it, everyone had to crawl. Now it is excavated and is higher because of the tourism.

The tunnels entrances were very brilliant designed to not be visible from the outside. They could be, for example, a gap in animal food tray, a gap in someone’s mattress, a gap in a fireplace, and so on. The reason was to make the tunnels as invisible as possible, to avoid detection from the Japanese.

A guide is required to get anything from a visit there, otherwise it will just feel like a lot of boring tunnels, unless you also hear all the fascinating stories. There are guides there, which are free, but they only speak Chinese.

There is also a restaurant serving “anti-Japanese food.” There they serve similar food as during the invasion. I didn’t taste.

The Old Summer Palace was the imperial residence, but he also did all the work from there. Emperor Kangxi began building the park in 1707, then in a relatively small scale, but it was later extended by succeeding emperors.

The park is divided into three distinct parts, three different gardens with their own buildings. The total area is about 1.4 square miles. By comparison, the new Summer Palace is 1.1 square miles and the Forbidden City only about 0.3. Part of the park is built in European style with the help from two Frenchmen who was hired by the Emperor Qianlong. There are also some buildings in Tibetan and Mongolian style, a way for the emperor to show how broad his empire was.

The park was destroyed

It was British commander Lord Elgin, who gave the order to destroy the park on October 18, 1860. The reason was that the Chinese under the leadership of Emperor Xianfeng had tortured and killed eight westerners, including two British diplomats and a journalist from The Times. Lord Elgin did not want to harm civilians or destroy the city of Beijing, so he decided that the Old Summer Palace should be leveled to the ground. 3500 soldiers helped to demolish, burn and destroy the park, and it burned for three days. It was the last thing that happened in the second opium war.

The park in the future

Many are interested in restoring the park, but such plans are usually thwarted since the park is an important part of the Chinese history. The Chinese government has decided to maintain the park as it, as a reminder of what happens when you choose to be dominated by foreign forces. Furthermore, it would be an extremely expensive and complex project to rebuild everything again. However, they have restored the gardens and many channels in the park, so you can imagine how the landscape looked like at that time.

A lot of what was plundered from the Old Summer Palace on those days in October 1860, is currently located in various foreign museums around the world. The Chinese government is working hard to try to get everything back, but it is an expensive and slow process. Everything that has been recovered so far can be seen in Beijing National Museum.

Getting there

Old Summer Palace is located in Beijing, about 5 miles northwest from the center, just west of Tsinghua University and east of the new Summer Palace. It can be reached most easily by taxi. Admission is low, 20 RMB per person (subject to change).