Places
of Interest in Beijing
This government
issued guide is interesting as a compliment to Lonely Planet.
Lots of obscure
details.
Beijing:
Glimpses of History
China
Travel Kit Series: Beijing
As above: a
government issued guide interesting as a compliment to Lonely Planet.
Lots
of obscure details.
Ancient
Temples in Beijing
Not as good
a book as you might expect.
But as we spent seven weeks in Beijing and
wanted to see everything, this helped fill some gaps.
The
Former Imperial Palace in Beijing
The "Forbidden
City" as most people know it, must be the most famous site in Beijing and
probably in China (the only competitor is the Great Wall.) It perhaps should
be called "Museum City" because it is much more than a palace complex.
Within its walls are temples, parks, and other museums, such as the Clock
and Painting museums.
This was a pretty good guide, bought on our first
visit, studied greatly, and reused on our second visit.
Incidentally, our
first visit was on a hot day of late summer; the second on a very clear
but very cold day of a very early winter.
Yuanmingyuan
Park - An Eternal Monument
Even emperors
want a new house.
French kings tired of Versailles and moved to Fontainebleau.
When Europeans came to China they brought new ideas and in the late 19th
century Italian and other architects were hired to build a "renaissance"
royal compound filled with modern (for the times) villas.
It didn't last
long; later British and French troops burned much of it.
The
Summer Palace
This was a
very, very old country estate that was modernized by the late and last
dowager empress.
The Chinese say (and I doubt it) that money that should
have gone to the Imperial Navy went into building this lavish palace.
Who
knows.
But it's a great tourist attraction and the book has lots of lovely
photos
Les
Dernieres rues de Pekin (Beijing Hutongs)
In French.
"Hutong" is untranslatable, so the French Author, limited to a few words
for the title, didn't try too hard.
A Hutong is literally a narrow alley,
but by extension it refers to the courtyard houses accessed from the alleys.
The nature and extent of this type of "subdivision" is unique to Beijing;
no other Chinese city has anything close to it.
With the modernization
of Beijing that has accelerated and accelerated these last 25 years more
and more hutongs have been leveled to make way for large high-rise apartment
blocks.
Only a few are left, and more and more, they are bought and upgraded
by the extremely rich.
Wonderful photographs in the book. |