Forbidden City in Beijing

The Forbidden City in Beijing was the most impressing site I have ever seen in my life. It is vast and beautiful, and well preserved. I am not surprised that Emperors lived there. The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dyansty. It was the home of the Emperor and his household and the ceremonial and political centre of Chinese government.

The palace which was built in XV century covers 720,000 square meters. It is surrounded by high city wall and a wide moat. The wall is pierced by gates on each side. To the south, there is the most famous gate called Tiananmen Gate, which is decorated with a portrait of Mao Zedong in the centre and two placards to the left and right: "Long Live the People's Republic of China" and "Long live the Great Unity of the World's Peoples". The Tiananmen Gate connects the Forbidden City precinct with well-known Tiananmen Square.

Tiananmen Sq in Beijing

We began our visiting from the Tiananmen Sq like many other tourists. We passed many gates, halls and even gardens inside the museum. Many of them names I don’t remember but there is a handy way to know them all when you are over there. You can rent a small device, a guide, for only 40 Yuen. They have this guide even in Polish which was a huge surprise for me.

Anyway, if you want to see ALL in there prepare yourself to spend all day on this visit. We had been there only a half day and we had to choose places where we want to go. For example I really wanted to see an exhibition of terracotta soldiers in one of the halls as I don’t know when I will go to Xi’an so after all we selected only few halls to go into. We skipped some of paintings exhibitions.

Forbidden City in Beijing

Inside the Forbidden City

I loved the Imperial Garden over there very much. It was small but it consisted of various landscaping elements (trees, rocks, water etc). It was a very relaxing place although there were many people.

The other thing that will always remind me of The Forbidden City is the roof decoration on the roof ridge. The more creatures on the roof the highest status of the building is like on the Hall of Supreme Harmony. Very beautiful creatures they are;)

Imperial Garden in the Firbidden City

Roof decorations in the background

The Forbidden City is surrounded on three sides by imperial gardens. One of them is Beihai Park on the north-west side which is centered on a lake. We planned to go there after visiting the Forbidden City but we changed our mind and took tricycle in order to see Mongolian Hutong area of the city where Genghis Khan used to live.

Beihai Park