Yuan Ming Yuan - The Old Summer Palace

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Most visitors come to Beijing to see the Forbidden City and Summer Palace. They didn’t know the original summer palace was grander and more beautiful than the existing summer palace. Emperor Kangxi commissioned to have the palace built for the royal family as a retreat during hot summer months in 1700. The palace took 150 years to complete. It was a beautiful royal summer palace until Britain and French allies looted and burned it down in 1860. Chinese often remembered the destruction of the summer palace as a mark of humiliation of the century. The palace has three parks. After two parks got burn down, they mostly became farmland or open fields. The third park “Yuan Ming Yuan” was designed by an Italian architect who used stone pillars, arches and domes similar to many buildings in Rome or Florence. When I first visited Yuan Ming Yuan in 1994, it was just a ruin with piles of rocks and broken columns scattered all over the place. Today the old summer palace has been restored with the exception of the ruin site. It is a nice park, although I had mixed feelings about the restoration. It serves no purpose to take so much land to re-build it when there are many attractions in Beijing.

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