picks up at the hotel takes about 30 minutes to start a day's tour at the Temple of Heaven. The Temple of Heaven is a masterpiece of architecture and landscape design which simply and graphically illustrates a cosmogony of great importance for the evolution of one of the world’s great civilizations. The symbolic layout and design of the Temple of Heaven had a profound influence on architecture and planning in the Far East over many centuries.For more than two thousand years China was ruled by a series of feudal dynasties, the legitimacy of which is symbolized by the design and layout of the Temple of Heaven. The siting, planning, and architectural design of the Temple of Heaven as well as the sacrificial ceremony and associated music were based on ancient tenets relating numbers and spatial organisation to beliefs about heaven and its relationship to people on earth, mediated by the emperor as the ‘Son of Heaven’.

The Yonghe Palace was originally the residence of the Qing Prince and the birthplace and growth place of Emperor Qianlong. It was the "hidden residence" of both Prince Yong and Emperor Qianlong. In 1744, Yonghe Temple was converted into a lama temple and became the center of the Qing government's control over Tibetan Buddhist affairs throughout the country. It is now the largest Tibetan Buddhist temple outside Xizang. Yonghe Palace has three unique wooden carvings. One of the 26 meter tall wooden sculptures is recorded by Guinness World Records as the world's largest single wooden sculpture. After lunch, drive about 40 minutes to the Summer Palace.