Time: 9:00-11:00 Summer Palace is the largest imperial royal garden in the world which was built by the Chinese Emperor Qianlong in Qing dynasty as a gift for his mother’s birthday! You’ll see the wisdoms and treasures of traditional Chinese architecture art while you walking in this garden. It is about 273 hectares in size and is composed of three main scenic areas: the palace area, lake area, and mountain area. You’ll visit the Summer Palace by taking a dragon boat on the lake which is the best way to visit Summer Palace (the boat trip is not available in winter as the lake would be frozen) . On the boat, you will have a chance to view all of the beautiful palaces at the side of the lake. After the boat trip, you will walk along a long corridor which is regarded as the longest art gallery in the world and has 14,000 Chinese traditional paintings on the beams.

After lunch, you will head to the Temple of Heaven. This is the place where ancient Chinese emperors used to worship their “Gods”. The Altar, Echo Wall and spectacular Imperial Vault are the highlights. You’ll find the Hall of Abstinence is a special place that those emperors use this palace for fasting before they held a ceremony to pray for a good harvest and would abstain from meat and wine. Usually, the emperor go to this palace three days in advance with no drinking, no entertainment, no mourning and paying no attention to any sins and crimes being committed which showed his piousness to his god.