In fact, there is no winter palace, but there is a summer palace. The Summer Palace was one of the homes of the emperors. The Summer Palace was an imperial garden and was a temporary palace during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911 AD).
Above is a photograph of the whole palace area. The dark areas are lakes and waterways. The numbers on the map will be used below.
Above is a picture of the entrance (1 on the map above).
The emperor Qianlong was impressed with Southern China so he had part of it reproduced at the Summer Palace. On either side of the bridge leading to the entrance was a re-creation of the one of the shopping areas of Suzhou in the 1800's, Suzhou Shopping Street. It was destroyed by the Anglo-French allied forces in 1860, as was most of the Summer Palace. This portion of the Summer Palace remained desolate until its restoration in 1987 to 1990. The shops along the walkway are real stores where you can shop like an emperor.
After entering the grounds you climbed many sets of stairs to the top of a hill covered with many temples (2 in the map above).
Everything, especially the roofs, were very detailed and ornate. In the old days the yellow glazed tiles were reserved for use only in royal palaces. Using them for other buildings was punishable by death.
Above is a series of walkways and buildings, which I believe (all of the
descriptions were in Chinese, so I'm not sure
) were the living quarters. They all looked out over the lake (3 on the map
above).
Down by the water were at least a kilometer or two of covered walkways (4 on the map above).
The underside of every surface of the covered walkway roof was painted with small scenes.
Above is the Clear and Peaceful Boat. It was originally known as the Marble Boat and was built in 1755. In 1860 is was burnt down by the Anglo-French forces. It was rebuilt and renamed in 1893 (5 on the map above).
You can probably walk for two days and still not see everything. We were there for only a few hours and were beginning to get tired. Above was the beginning of the Western Causeway (6 on the map above).
2018-03-05