Beijing - The Summer Palace

Up early this morning and had a wonderful breakfast at the hotel and then grabbed the camera gear and headed to a taxi to go to The Summer Palace.  A front desk worker had written down where we wanted to go in Chinese for the taxi driver.  Thirty minutes later we arrived right where we wanted to be!  As we entered the park area we passed by Suzhou Street with it's 64 shops, 14 gateways and 8 small bridges.

It's a gorgeous Sunday morning, though a little haze in the sky so we will have a lot of company today!  We passed through the Archway and headed up the steps. 

The East Palace Gate allowed entry to the Palace.  The gate in the middle (left of picture) was for the emperor and empress, the gates on either side were for princes and high officials and the northern and southern sidedoors were for eunichs and guards.

  We wandered through the maze up to the top of the hill...

past all sorts of Tibetan style buildings...beautiful!

 Then down the other side to the large Lake Kunming

and the Long Corridor.  It runs along the lake and is 728 meters long with 1400 pictures painted on its ceiling.  It is known as the longest painted gallery in the world.  Stunning!

 These taxi boats will take to you to different areas of the lake,

but we chose to walk and enjoy the beautiful flowers...

Flowering peach...

and a small pond with weeping willows.

 Lots of beautiful bridges...

 and musicians practicing their skills.

 

 

 

The Clear and Peaceful Boat popularly known as the Marble Boat was built in 1755 by the Empress Dowager Cixi with funds to be used to establish a new Navy.

 The Jade Belt Bridge...

 It was a glorious walk...

 over stunning bridges...

 past people playing games - this one a shuttlecock game.

 and then we spotted this duck...

and found some experts to ID it...European Widgeon.

 The smog rolled in (many said it was a sandstorm from
 the Gobi Dessert) and the sun virtually disappeared...

but it didn't stop all the paddle boaters!

 

or the many parents taking pictures of their children!

About 2:30 we had wandered around the lake and though there were still a lot of temples and buildings to see we decided to call it a day.  We caught a taxi back to the hotel and relaxed for awhile and then met up with our Roads Scholar group for dinner at 6.  There are 10 of us and our guide, Mei.  Looks like an interesting adventure!