Summer Palace
The Summer Palace (Yiheyuan in chinese),
originally named Qingyiyuan, is located 12km west of
Beijing city. It is the largest ancient and well-preserved
garden in china.
The Summer Palace mainly consists
of Longevity Hill and Kunming Lake, covering an area
of 290 hectares, three quarters of which are water.
The 60-meter high Longevity Hill, which can be divided
into Front Hill and Rear Hill, offers nice views around,
while the man-made Kumming Lake is available for boat
rides most of the year and ice-skating in the frozen
winter months.
In the garden, pavilions, mansions,
towers, pagodas, corridors, palaces, ponds, etc, blend
together in spite of their individual styles. As essence
of Chinese gardening art, it concentrates the features
of the gardens in southern and northern china, and can
be reputed as the soul of the Chinese gardens.
The initial garden was built in 1750,
commissioned by Emperor Qinglong as a gift for his mother¡¯s
birthday. But unfortunately, in 1860, the allied force
of Great Britain and France invaded in Beijing and set
a fire on this garden, destroying most of the constructions.
Several years later Dowager Cixi renovated it and renamed
it ¡°Summer Palace¡±. However, it was
again destructed by the allied forces of The Eight Countries
in 1900. Two years later, the palace was restored to
the scale and design it is today.
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