BEIHAI PARK

In the north-west of the Forbidden City, this park, which covers 68 ha, is one of the most popular walks by the Chinese traveling there on Sunday, picnics, photographing; and it's like winter. So, in winter, you will see many Chinese making the "ice chair" (chair with ice skates) on the frozen lake, which extends to the middle of the park over 35 ha.

Three doors allow access to the park. The main entrance overlooks the Round City (Tuancheng) which corresponded to the center of the Mongolian capital. Right across the way, on the island of Hortensias, was a palace that Kubilai chose as a residence when he decided to make dadu (the old name of Beijing) its capital. It was only in 1652, on the ruins of the palace that the Dagoba white you can see today, a great white stupa of 36 meters, of Tibetan style. It was built during the Dalai Lama's first visit to China. The summit offers a splendid view of Beijing. Before accessing Dagoba, you will first discover the "Temple of Eternal Tranquility" (Yongan Si), built in floors until Dagoba, then the Pavilion of the Wheel of the Act (Falun Dian), as well as many other sanctuaries.

In the north of the island, the old palace of the Waves (Yilan tang) now houses an imperial restaurant restaurant. By walking, you will admire the various rooms and pavilions on the shores of the lake: the five pavilions, the kiosks connected to each other by a gallery, giving them the surrealistic look of a dragon, built on pilgrimages in the sixteenth century to allow the emperors to engage in fishing. Finally, the Great Western Paradise (Da Xi Tian), a large square wooden building surrounded by a gap, formerly housed statues symbolizing the different stages of reincarnation, but now serves only as a games room.

Then, further east, a large hall stands just opposite a large wall made of volcanic stones (the Iron Screen) carved beneath the Yuan, dragons and other mythological animals. Not far from there, in the middle of several other sanctuaries, the Petit Paradis de l 'Ouest (Xiao Xi Tan) often hosts exhibitions of paintings accessible to all during the opening hours of the park. A little further north of Xiao Xi Tan, the Ten Thousand Buddhas Pavilion (Wan Fo Lu), built by Qianlong on the occasion of its mother's eighty years, stands like a three-story pavilion with a yellow roof. The numerous niches that housed ten thousand Buddha statuettes in solid gold, stolen in 1900, can still be seen. However, it remains right next to the very beautiful wall at the Nine Dragons (Jiulongbi) made of varnished and colored bricks on which dragons played with pearls in waves, whose role was to protect themselves from bad spirits.

This park offers very beautiful trees of various species, but if you can walk there with a real pleasure as the Chinese do at weekends, all the more so because it offers a beautiful possibility of canoeing in the beautiful days and skating in winter!