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| The amazing Summer Palace in Beijing, reminiscent of the Tibetan architecture |
"The Summer Palace in Beijing is clearly a very suitable place for resting but also for thinking and meditating.
The beautiful lake and the romantic causeways of the Summer Palace in Beijing are immediately reminiscent of the lake beauty of the town of Hangzhou famous for its elegance and its beauty".
The Summer Palace in my opinion is even more interesting than the Forbidden City.
The Summer Palace represents a great example of Chinese classical architecture, heavily influenced by the architecture of the now destroyed Nanjing Palace of the Emperor.
The Summer Palace, although practically rebuilt entirely after the Western forces occupation, represents a more innovative and certainly romantic idea of architecture if compared with the Forbidden City.
The beautiful lake and the romantic causeways of the Summer Palace in Beijing are immediately reminiscent of the lake beauty of the town of Hangzhou.
Even the beautiful and elegant bridges and gardens remind of the Southern landscape.
The temples complex built on the side of the Fragrant Hills is beautiful an reminiscent of the Tibetan art and architecture, making good use of those hills that at first sight would have looked more an obstacle than a support to the building of such a beautiful park.
Decorations representing clouds, old Buddha statues and other deities are extremely beautiful.
The ceramics tiles decorating the buildings shine under the sun.
Walking around the paths surrounding the lake you can easily sense the feeling of seclusion and isolation this place offered to the Emperor.
The Summer Palace in Beijing is clearly a very suitable place for resting but also for thinking and meditating.
The Summer Palace in Beijing is a symbol of the Chinese power and of the Chinese art and this probably the reason why the Western powers decided to destroy this historic symbol.
Here you can appreciate the grandness of China, from Tibet to the Suzhou canals, as the canals of this famous town are skilfully reproduced.
The history tells that the Empress Cuxi breaking the traditional rule of the time decided to speak personally to the emissaries of Western countries and choose this wonderful park as a wonderful setting for those meetings, obviously aware of the impression that those settings would make on the foreign emissaries.
The park is huge and the walk along the lake is long but never boring.
Each few steps a new feature appears giving new reasons of interest to the visitor..
A pagoda, a half moon bridge, a willow tree, the lotus flowers floating on the water or maybe just the fishes jumping out from the lake make me easily forget the modern Beijing, although the tall and ugly skyscrapers are just waiting me at the exit gates of the Summer Palace.
Are you interested in China or are you planning to travel to China?
Read my page My China Project where you can find the list of all of my posts and the destinations covered in this blog in China.
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