The Forbidden City

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The construction of The Forbidden City began in 1406. It is now called The Palace Museum. It is in the central part of Beijing and was the imperial palace of Ming and Qing dynasties. 24 different emporors lived in the palace for nearly 500 years. The halls and pavilions and palaces seem to go on forever. The whole complex is nearly 1 000 000 square metres with 9 000 bays and halls. The walls around the city are about 10 metres high with magnificent towers on each corner. The whole complex is surriounded by a moat so it becomes a fort to keep outsiders out. In fact, if you were caught in the city you would have had your head cut off quick smart. It is remarkable how well preserved everything is. In a country that has been invaded, overrun, destroyed, rebuilt, redesigned, revolutionised, modernised, culturalised and colonised, one would think that this site would have been one of the first to be destroyed. The movie, The Last Emporor, was filmed in the Forbidden City. See the movie and appreciate the magnificence of this UN World Heritage Site. Better still, come and see it.

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Photos

The Entrance
The image of Mao on the entrance to the city. This image is now a symbol of the new China. I am standing in Tiananmen Square.

Inside the Meridian Gate
The Meridian Gate is the main entrance. The is a huge courtyard and the beginning of the Outer Court

Tom and Ryk
This view is of the inside of the Meridian Gate. We are standing on the steps of the first great hall, the Taihe Hall (The Hall of Supreme Harmony)

The Hall of Supreme Harmony
This was the emperor's audience hall. It was built on 3 levels of huge, beautifully carved marble terraces. It is the largest wooden palace structure in China.

The Hall of Preserving Harmony
There are 3 great halls in the Outer Chamber. This is the last of the three, The Hall of Preserving Harmony.

Stone Steps
These stone steps are carved from single pieces of granite. Each one weighs 250 tons. They got them into place by spreading water over the courtyard and when the water froze, the stones were slid into place.

Jenni in the Outer Courtyard
The three great halls of the Outer Courtyard. The Hall of Supreme Harmony, The Hall of Central Harmony and The Hall of Preserving Harmony. They are big, really big. But everything in China is big.

Scenes From Inside the Halls
The emperor held various audiences in these halls,

Scenes From Inside the Halls
All of the great wealth (gold mostly) is obviously gone. A lot is in Taiwan apparently.

Quiangqiu Pavilion
This is in the inner courtyard. It is in the imperial garden so it was a place of peacefulness and solitude for the emperor and empress.

Quiangqiu Pavilion
The gardes around the pavilion are where the young emperor Puyi would play. He was the last emperor before the Qing Dynasty fell to republican revolutionaries in 1911. Puyi kept playing, oblivious to the fact he was no longer an emperor.

The Gates at the Imperial Garden
A beautiful scene in the Imperial Garden

In the Imperial Garden
There are many rock sculptures in the garden. They are often aligned up with a door or window like this to create a 'frame', like a picture. The scene can be viewed from different angles to achieve different results.

Leaving the Shengwu Gate
The Palace Museum is like no other museum you could ever see. An extensive conservation project was carried out after the founding of The People's Republic of China in 1949 and it was made a World Heritage Site in 1987.