Full day visit to the UNESCO Imperial Gardens - The Emperor's Disneyland

Full day visit to the UNESCO Imperial Gardens - The Emperor's Disneyland

Beijing Summer is not a joke, we didn’t have air-conditioning 110 years ago unfortunately, so our smart majesty built himself gardens to cool himself down, to make this outdoor air conditioner looks pretty, he sent 100 imperial painters travelled to the most beautiful places in Southern China, painted the view down and built the same back here into his imperial gardens, in this way, he could enjoy the wonderful landscapes of his country just in Beijing, how creative!

In this tour, we take you to the New Summer Palace where you can get the experience feeling like an emperor indulge himself in the past + the Old Summer Palace, where was invaded, robbed, burnt. You are more connected with its incarnation, to see what’s it like during the most prosperous time, to imagine if you would feel heartbreaking like the emperor when he saw his favorite garden was burnt and gone forever.

And what’s more, you will get the idea of their fantasy life and royal family’s gossips from us...

Itinerary
This is a typical itinerary for this product

Stop At: Summer Palace (Yiheyuan), No.19 Xinjian Gongmen Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100080 China

Summer Palace, or we call it Yi He Yuan Garden, is the most beautiful and best preserved imperial garden from the ancient times in China, as well as the last one built in 1735, considered having the most comprehensive impression of the top Chinese gardening art and skill of the past 2200 years.

However, it was no lucky enough to be survived from the fire set by the invaders during the Second War of Opium in 1860. But it was the only one of the 5 gardens that got renovated after the royal family come back to Bejing. Why this one? Why they used the money that suppose to support the military to rebuit Yi He Yuan Garden when the country was in debt? It's told that everything was required by a woman, who was titled the Dragon Lady, she wanted to renovate Yi He Yuan no matter what it takes... What on earth happened that the royal family comply with her request? Why Chinses people at that time hated her idea but the emperor could change anything?

If you don't know any of these, don't worry, you will know now very soon with us..

Duration: 3 hours

Stop At: Old Summer Palace (Yuanmingyuan), Qinghuan West Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100007 China

Imperial garden was the place where emperor could forget his pressure, title, responsibility. Therefore, they were so dedicated to make gardens the best way they could, the most they wanted: incredible architectures including western styles, most valuable treasures they got in many ways, beautiful women they could not arrange them living in Forbidden City and paintings, collections of calligraphy, theaters for Chinese and western music, operas, “Pet’s house” for beautiful animals like rare birds, peacock, elephant, extra, slowly, here becoming their Disneyland where everything is pleasant, everything makes the emperor feeling like in Heaven.

The royal faimly built themselves 5 imperial gardens in the west of Beijing, in total, more than 1000 hectares, among them, the most favorite and the largest was the Yuan Ming Yuan Garden, which we call it the Old Summer Palace, it was like a paradise where emperor spent most of their time of year here, storing their invaluable assets, which was not a secret... in 1860, this unparalleled beautiful garden was robbed by the brutal and greedy invaders, they took everything they could with hands, bags and horse cars, in the end when they leave, they left a fire burning down this wonderland into ashes...

Nowadays, some of the teasure has come back to China, some of them are exhibiting in big museums all over the world, such like the Zodiac Head.

History is not always friendly and sweet, but guess that how it creates the beauty of the lost, the art of the sadness.

Yuanmingyuan Garden, is not very much renovated, thanks for that, it gives us a chance walking into the real history, to see the real face from the past

Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes