The Summer Palace
II: Up to the temple

    Near the entrance to the Summer Palace are two temples set on a hill. It's one of those places that you just have to visit because it's there. The top of the hill also offers a good view of the lake. So we climbed it, and offer these pictures as a little sense of what it was like. Then we climbed down the other side and unexpectedly encountered the "Emperor Mall" (Part III of this series).

Back near where we began our visit to the Summer Palace, this is where you start to climb the hill to the temples.

The view from the first temple. South Lake Island and the 17-arched bridge are in the rear center. The little shortcut across the lake is on the right rear. We walked around the entire part of the lake that is shown here.

The view from the higher temple, looking in the opposite direction from the lake. From here, you can climb down the other side of the hill to a point the entrance (as we did).

This is a view of northwest Beijing as seen from partway down the hill. Pretty neat, eh?

Another scene partway down the hill.

Looking back up the hill from a point nearly at ground level. Now, this guard dog looks more like a dog! (The Chinese insist that these creatures are lions, however.)

Here is his counterpart on the left. Note the baby lion in front.
From here we moved to Emperor Mall, just a few steps away.

Ahead to Summer Palace Part III
Back to Summer Palace Part I
Back to Beijing