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» China-Travel-Articles » Reading: "Travelling to the Celestial Empire - Highlights of Beijing"
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| Travelling to the Celestial Empire - Highlights of Beijing |
By:
allrez.com |
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China, a country with the longest history amidst the existing powers, is experiencing a new twist of popularity.
Partly it’s due its new more open policy, partly due to the future Olympics of 2008, but nevertheless the amount of the visitors to China has grown up significantly.
Beijing – the capital of the Summer Games 2008 is the most significant point on your route map of your travel to China.
In Beijing tourists usually visit Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven and Beijing Opera.
Temple of Heaven is situated on the south of the city. It was built during Ming dynasty rule and is still the largest Chinese Altar complex. In ancient times it was a place for the sacrifice and now it’s a kind of museum, keeping the memory of these distant times and presenting a perfect sample of Chinese architecture.
It consists of three main groups of constructions - The Earthly Mount, The House of Heavenly Lord and The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. At the beginning of 2005, the Temple of Heaven underwent a 5.9 million USD face-lift in preparation for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics and was reopened on May 1st, 2006.
Chinese emperors usually raised special summer palaces outside the city, as the summer in Beijing is too hot. The grandest Summer Palace (290 sq. m.) is located 20 kilometers away from Beijing. It is surrounded with the huge park with residential buildings, temples and pavilions on the banks of the artificial lake.
The first pavilions were built in XII century and the first temple – in the beginning of the XVI century. Along the lake stretches a gallery with a roof where it’s very pleasant to have a walk when it’s raining. When the weather is windy, all the jingles decorating the roofs of the pavilions begin to bang, creating an melody.
Another interesting attraction of Beijing is Forbidden City – it served as an imperial palace from the mid-Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. It’s situated in the center of the modern Beijing and now houses the Palace Museum. It incorporates 800 buildings with 8886 rooms.
Beijing Opera is a mix of the theatre, the pantomime, acrobatics, circus and carnival. This art appeared in China in the end of XVIII century and since that time has almost not changed – now the spectators can see the same performance as several centuries ago.
When in China, the other must-see is the Great Wall - world's longest man-made structure with the length of over 6352 kilometers. It passes from Shanhai Pass to Lop Nur. The Wall lies 90 kilometers north from Beijing and is a symbol of the Ancient China and the unsurpassed example of the fortification structure.
If you like to book hotel in Beijing, please visit http://www.allrez.com/static/china/Beijing/ |
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