OLD SUMMER PALACE
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History
The Yuanmingyuan, or rather its ruins, was once part of a set of summer palaces in Europe built by Jesuit architects - the Castiglione fathers and Benoist - at the request of Emperor Qianlong between 1740 and 1747. Pyramids, chairs, water games, canals, basins at the heart of gardens sometimes French (with a labyrinth) or planted with fruit trees, carefully drawn… to Chinese and built on the most beautiful gardens of South China.
The Anglo-French troops destroyed these palaces and their gardens in 1860 at the end of the two opium wars. Plundering continued during the ensuing period of instability. Moreover, the marble columns of the University of Beijing and the library come from the ruins of summer palace. Apart from a museum that retraces the history of these gardens, there are now only blocks of stone in the middle of the gardens and ponds where pink lotus are seen.
Visit
You have to walk through the ruins of the Yuanmingyuan, as in a public park, picnic it and boat or skate the winter on the frozen Fuhai Lake. The park is much less popular than the summer palace area, so there is a feeling that it is less aggressed by the compact crowd of Chinese tourists walking there daily.
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