Still in Beijing, they took us today to the Summer Palace.

This is the royal retreat for the Emperor and his family.

An Emperor built it on the shores of a manmade lake.

Today it is a park for local citizens and visitors. Beijing has 25 million people, and they told to expect 10 million to show up at this site. I think most of them didn’t show up on this nice Saturday. It was quite pleasant. To help put this in perspective, Florida has between 15 and 18 million population.

The Royal retreat has covered walkways,

And Pavilions

And palaces. The last dowager empress decorated much of the complex. If you remember, that was the dragon lady in ‘The Last Emperor.’  Her name was Cixi.

The living quarters reminded us of the Hutongs we saw yesterday  but on a much grander scale. We visited the courtyard of the dowager empress, which was surrounded by four buildings or houses. A palace complex.

We took a dragon boat across the lake. My husband the comedian said that he and his Dragon Wife visited the Royal retreat today. Ha Ha!

After lunch we visited The Temple of Heaven.

This is a Taoist temple; and I had seen it before.  Well, I had at least seen a small replica of it at Disney’s Epcot in Orlando.  It is in the China section of Epcot.

 

The Temple of Heaven is where the emperor worshiped and asked for a bountiful harvest for his peoples’ lands.

 

The temple is surrounded by a complex of buildings and smaller temples.

The Temple is a circular ceremonial building.

Not allowed to enter,  we could take pictures through the door.

It was in a scenic park with lots of other beautiful buildings.

Built in the 15th century, it was where the emperor worshipped.  The entire complex was beautiful, peaceful, and a great place to walk.