Chengde from Beijing

Highlights:

Private excursion from Beijing
Admire the glorious summer gardens at Chengde
Explore the main palace and Eight Outer Temples

Overview:

Full-day private excursion from Beijing to the gardens and temples of Chengde's Mountain Retreat, the summer palace of the Emperors and UNESCO World Heritage Site

Description:

A great day out from Beijing

Pick up from your Beijing hotel at around 7.30am and drive to Chengde, beyond the Great Wall, where the emperor and his court would escape the summer heat of Beijing in the cool breezes of their Mountain Retreat. Arrive around 11.30am, and after an early lunch visit the Summer Palace gardens, exquisite 18th century pavilions and pagodas surrounded by a huge park Since the court spent so much time here, carrying on the offical business of the empire, many foreign diplomats would be formal guests at this showcase, to be entertained and impressed by the wealth and might of the empire, and more closely bound to it politically. The Main Palace was designed as a simple building to show visiting dignitaries that the emperor had not lost touch with his people, and the Eight Outer Temples were built in the different architectural styles of the different minority tribes that made up the Chinese Empire – Tibetan, Mongolian and Han for example, and one of them is a beautiful copy of Lhasa’s Potola Palace which you visit later in the afternoon. Return to Beijing and arrive back at your hotel at around 9pm.

Price includes: