Summer Palace is quoted as "a masterpiece of Chinese landscape garden design. The natural landscape of hills and open water is combined with artificial features such as pavilions, halls, palaces, temples and bridges to form a harmonious ensemble of outstanding aesthetic value."

As the largest and seemingly best-preserved imperial garden in China, I would have to agree. Construction of the Summer Palace was initiated in 1750 by Emperor Qianlong as a gift for his mother's birthday. It has been rebuilt (and slightly restructured) twice due to invasions and renovated in 1888 by Empress Dowager Cixi.

Six of us visited the palace together and we split up into two groups, cause it's harder to handle the interests of larger groups and you get more glances by Chinese tourists or locals. As you enter the South Gate and cross the bridge, take note not to miss the quaintly beautiful and very colorful "Little Suzhou" where the Emperor/Empress (or Emperor's son) would pretend to be a "normal" citizen by making his servants act as shop owners and performers and haggle for various items.

The wide structure and large stairways of the front of the Summer Palace had an open-castle feel to them. Entertaining Rock Gardens line the path up the stairs and can certainly be termed a source of recreation, though you're not "supposed" to climb them or try jumping ledge to ledge, but it's just too much fun. Matt snapped a quick picture for me. At the top is the Temple of Buddhist Virtue, an odd yellow-green colored building with a very large statue of one of the Buddhist deities (tranquility or something) inside, worth checking out.

To the right (East) of the temple are some more rock gardens - one with a very tall ledge that provides a great overview of Kunming Lake if you can find the right position looking beside the Tower of Buddhist Incense. The path winds down all the way until you reach lakeside and the Long Corridor.

There is NO side route that lets you cut into the path leading up to the Tower . We decided to walk West along the corridor, missing the Marble Boat, and take in some views of lake as we looked for an electric or paddleboat rental. The Palace is host to beautiful nature scenery with quaint walking paths, trees swaying along the lake, lily marshes, and several different architectures. The Long Corridor has an intricate roof interior with a traditional but nonetheless graceful green-red pattern. Be sure to look under the pavilion roofs for the art.

We visited the Hall of Benevolence and Longevity to see Empress Cixi's throne or her influence on the architecture, I can not recall. We were historied out at this point in the trip and were just seeing what sights we could pick out and take pictures of, ha. Very little sign reading anymore.

>>> Post by DUFOSSE from France

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