Summer Palace
Kunming Lake, the Long Corridor and Marble Boat of the imperial resort.
Visitor info
- Opening hours
- 06:30-18:00
- Ticket
- 30 CNY (low season) / 60 CNY
- Suggested visit
- 3 hours
Price is indicative — final quote on inquiry.
Why it's worth it
The Qing court's summer playground: three-quarters of the 290-hectare grounds are Kunming Lake, dug by thousands of labourers, with the Long Corridor — 728 metres of painted beams — running along the shore. Empress Dowager Cixi rebuilt it in 1888 with money earmarked for the navy.
Don't miss
- The Long Corridor's 14,000 landscape paintings — no two panels repeat
- Longevity Hill's Tower of Buddhist Incense for the full lake-and-city view
- A ferry across the lake to the South Lake Island instead of walking back
Getting there
Metro Line 4 to Beigongmen (North Palace Gate) or Xiyuan; most visitors enter north, climb the hill first, then descend to the corridor and lake.
Tips
- Half a day is right; combine with the Old Summer Palace ruins nearby if you have energy
- Boats stop around 4pm in low season; electric ferry vs the old-style oar boats differ in price
- Winter turns the lake into a skating scene; summer evenings the gates stay open late
Photos
More in Beijing
- The Forbidden City
The world's largest palace complex, 9,999 rooms of Ming and Qing emperors.
- Mutianyu Great Wall
The restored, less-crowded Great Wall section with a toboggan descent.
- Temple of Heaven
Where emperors prayed for harvest; morning tai chi in the cypress park.
- Tiananmen Square
One of the world's largest city squares, about 880 m long north to south and able to hold a million people—the core space of Beijing's Central Axis: the founding ceremony of the PRC was held here on October 1, 1949; the Monument to the People's Heroes stands at the center, the Great Hall of the People on the west, and on the east the China...
- The Palace Museum (Forbidden City)
Completed in the 18th year of Ming Yongle (1420), the imperial palace where 24 emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties lived and ruled, formerly the Forbidden City: covering 720,000 sq m with over 8,700 rooms, the world's largest and best-preserved wooden palace complex
- Jingshan Park
A small hill park directly facing the Forbidden City's Shenwu Gate, built in the Ming Wanli era from moat-digging earth and palace rubble, formerly Coal Hill: Wanchun Pavilion on the central peak is the high point of Beijing's Central Axis—the only vantage for a panorama of the Forbidden City's golden roofs, looking south to the palace and north to the Bell and Drum Towers