The Summer Palace - last activity in Beijing

After the walking along the Great Wall we headed to another iconic sight - The Summer Palace.  This is where the Emperors and the Empress came during the summer months as it was cooler than the heart of Beijing.  Well if it is cool in summer it is freezing in winter!!  During its history it has been destroyed 3 times.  the last was in the 1800.  It is said that the Empress (aka Dragon Lady) embezzled funds from the royal navy to have the gardens rebuilt.

We arrived and hopped out of our nice warm car, where Scott declared that it was a nice warm day, it actually did feel that way until we came up to the Palace.  It soon became very noticeably why the Empress  preferred to be here in the summer.  It is 290 hectares of which over 120 of these is the lake.  During winter the lake is frozen solid, hence why it was so cold.

The Palace also contains the longest corridor, it cannot really be restored as each section was decorated by different, unique artists and much to Scotts delight contains a picture from 'Monkey Magic"!!

throughout the garden there are also internal canals - all of which were frozen as well.  the wind was blowing in both directions hence my getup below!!  Scott and our guide thought i was hilarious - i was just trying to keep warm.

during the summer months the chinese people hold their dragon boat racing on the lake and the gardens are spectacular and would be well worth a visit in spring.

again this garden was another amazing place to visit and we will also remember this for a lifetime.

on our way back to our hotel we managed a quick look at a couple of the olympic sites - the Birds Nest and the Cube.  We also found that even in Beijing they have their very own China Town!!

Well our Beijing adventure ends and our London adventure begins.  Bring on the family.