Beijing Summer Palace
Sunday 17th July
The Summer Palace is a massive complex — over 300 hectares, including some huge lakes — so it didn't matter that we visited on a weekend when it was full of people: it's big enough that it didn't feel crammed.
The Summer Palace is 15km
out of central Beijing and there's plenty to see, so it's worth spending
a whole
day there. We paid 50 yuan each to get in. The taxi from the city
centre was 100 yuan; we caught ordinary city buses back for 2 yuan each.
There are many entrances; we started with Suzhou Street. This consists of shops on both banks of a small lake/river, selling food and drink and tourist items, all in "traditional" style. It's very touristy, but since a large part of the period it's trying to capture is "bustling commerce", that doesn't spoil the effect.
