Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Jingshan Park
景山公园
, jǐngshān gōngyuán • Daily: April-Oct 6.30am-9pm; Nov-March 6.30am-8pm •
￥
2 • Nanluoguxi-
ang subway (line 6)
A visit to
Jingshan Park
is a natural way to round off a trip to the Forbidden City, which
most visitors exit from the North Gate, just across the road from the park. An artificial
mound, the park was a by-product of the digging of the palace moat, and served as both a
windbreak and a barrier to keep malevolent spirits (believed to emanate from the north) from
entering the imperial quarter of the city. Its history, most momentously, includes the suicide
in 1644 of the last Ming emperor,
Chong Zhen
, who hanged himself here from a tree after
rebel troops broke into the imperial palace. The site, on the eastern side of the park, is easy
to find - English-language signs for it appear everywhere (beneath those pointing the way to
a children's playground) - but the tree that stands here is not the original. Though he was a
dissolute opium fiend, the suicide note pinned to his lapel was surprisingly noble:
My own insufficient virtue and wretched nature has caused me to sin against heaven above. I die knowing I am
wholly unworthy to stand before my sacred ancestors… Let the rebels tear my miserable body to pieces but let them
touch not a single hair on the head of the least of my subjects.
Afterwards, the tree was judged an accessory to the emperor's death and, as punishment, was
manacled with an iron chain. The
views
from the top of the hill make this park a compelling
target: they take in the whole extent of the Forbidden City and (if the weather cooperates) a
fair swath of the city outside, a great deal more attractive than seen from ground level. To the
west is Beihai Park and its lake; to the north the Bell and Drum towers; and to the northeast
the
Yonghe Gong
.
Beihai Park
北海公园
, běihǎi gōngyuán • South gate accessed by Wenjin Jie; north gate via Di'anmen Xidajie • Daily:
April-Oct 6.30am-9pm; Nov-March 6.30am-8pm; sights close 5pm • Park entry
￥
10;
￥
20 including entry to
all buildings; pedaloes/rowing boats
￥
40-50/hr • North entrance near Beihai North subway (line 6)
Just a few hundred metres west of Jingshan Park,
BeihaiPark
, most of which is taken up by
a lake, is a favourite spot for many locals. Supposedly created by Kublai Khan, long before
any of the Forbidden City structures were conceived, the park is of an ambitious scale: the
lake was man-made, the island in its midst created with the excavated earth. Qing Emperor
Qianlong oversaw its landscaping into a classical Chinese garden in the eighteenth century.
Featuring willows and red-columned galleries, it's still a grand place to retreat from the city
and recharge.
The Round and the island
Just inside the main gate, which lies on the park's southern side, is the
Round
, an enclosure
of buildings behind a circular wall, which has at its centre a courtyard where there's a large
