Handpicked experience · Beijing
Beijing, China
Roof figures that encode rank, floor bricks that ring like metal, an altar built entirely in nines, and a fake market street where the court went shopping for fun.
Three imperial sites in one day, with the driving handled between them
The central axis of the Forbidden City, walked in sequence
The acoustics of the round altar and its surrounding wall
The lake, the painted corridor and the gardens of the Summer Palace
Lunch at a local restaurant rather than a tourist canteen
A full day of eight to ten hours across Beijing's three great imperial sites: the Forbidden City along its central axis, the Temple of Heaven and its altars, and the lakeside gardens of the Summer Palace, taken in the order that stays ahead of the worst of the crowds.
A great deal of walking on flat ground — several kilometres in total, most of it on stone in the open. The driving between sites is where you sit down. Bring your passport: the Forbidden City checks the document used for booking at the gate, and you cannot enter without it.
Along the corner of every imperial roof runs a line of small ceramic figures — a man riding a bird at the front, then a procession of beasts behind him. The number is not decorative licence: it encodes rank, rising in odd numbers with the importance of the building. Nine was the maximum any hall was permitted. Exactly one roof in China has ten, with a unique extra figure at the end, and it belongs to the Hall of Supreme Harmony, where emperors were enthroned.
The dark floor slabs in the main halls are known as golden bricks, though there is no gold in them. Each was made from clay near Suzhou, worked and fired for months, then soaked in tung oil until it took a polish. They were shipped a thousand kilometres north by canal. Struck, they ring like metal. The courtyards outside are paved many layers deep, laid crosswise on top of each other, specifically so that nobody could tunnel into the palace.
At the Temple of Heaven, the round altar where the emperor made the winter solstice sacrifice is built entirely in multiples of nine: nine rings of paving, the innermost of nine stones, then eighteen, then twenty-seven, outward to the edge. Nine was the number reserved to the emperor. Stand on the central stone and your own voice comes back at you off the surrounding balustrades, louder than it left.
The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests is round, wooden and built without a single nail or crossbeam. Twenty-eight pillars hold it up, and they are counted deliberately: four inner ones for the seasons, twelve around them for the months, twelve more outside for the two-hour divisions of the Chinese day. The building burned to the ground after a lightning strike in 1889 and was rebuilt to the same scheme.
Behind the Summer Palace's hill runs a mock canal-side shopping street, built so the court could experience a southern market town without leaving Beijing. Eunuchs and palace staff dressed as merchants, stalls were stocked, and the emperor's family walked through and haggled. Nearby, the covered Long Corridor runs more than seven hundred metres along the lake, painted end to end with thousands of scenes, no two of them the same.
Wear shoes for a long day standing and walking. Shade is scarce at the Temple of Heaven and in the Forbidden City courtyards.
Open it to pick a date and work out the price.
What the fare covers, and what to budget for separately.
The practical detail, and the answers people actually ask for.
Yes. The Forbidden City checks the document used to book against the ticket at the gate, and entry is refused without it. Carry the passport itself, not a copy.
They mark rank. The count rises in odd numbers with a building's importance, capped at nine — except the Hall of Supreme Harmony, which carries ten and a unique final figure found nowhere else.
For their finish and their value, not their material. They were fired near Suzhou over months, steeped in tung oil, then barged a thousand kilometres north. They ring when struck.
It was the emperor's number. The round altar is laid out in nine rings, starting with nine stones and increasing by nine each time, so the whole structure is one long multiplication.
Yes, and without crossbeams. Twenty-eight pillars carry it — four for the seasons, twelve for the months, twelve for the two-hour periods of the day. It was rebuilt to the same design after an 1889 lightning fire.
A recreated southern market lane where palace staff played shopkeepers so the imperial family could go shopping without leaving the grounds.
Several kilometres over the day, almost all of it flat but on hard stone with little shade. The vehicle covers the distances between the three sites.