Wednesday 7 August, 2013 at the Summer Palace

After breakfast we left Jinshanling and went back to Beijing where we spent the rest of the day exploring the Summer Palace. It is said to be the best preserved imperial garden in the world, and the largest of its kind still in existence in China.

The park was restored by Empress Dowager Ci’xi in the late nineteenth century using money that was supposed to be used to modernise the Chinese navy. The original Summer Palace had been looted and burned by British and French troops in 1860.

This is a huge park filled with pavilions and temples.

The Chinese call it Yihe Yuan (Garden of Restful Peace), and the landscaped gardens, temples and pavilions were designed to achieve harmony with nature, to soothe, and to please the eye.

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In the evening we boarded the overnight train to Luoyang.

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