Two travel bees
and our travel diary
The emperor's summer escape
​
A short metro ride from the city center lies the Summer Palace with its splendid halls, pavilions, large lake and gardens. The palace was built for the Qing dynasty emperors (18th century ) to escape the heat of the imperial city in Beijing and is a perfectly preserved philosophy and practice of Chinese garden design. The palace overlooks an entirely man-made lake Kunming and the excavated soil was used to construct the Longevity Hill where the palace lies. In the 18th century Emperor Qianlong ordered 100.000 workers to expand the lake to imitate the famous West Lake in HangZhou.
The palace is also home of the famous Long Corridor, an around 700m long covered walkway from mid-18th century with more than 14,000 paintings, beautiful colors and details.
We arrived at the Qing dynasty summer palace in the late afternoon and decided to walk around the entire lake. The Long Corridor stretches along one side of the lake, while the rest is an idyllic pathway with low-hanging willows and views of the palace and garden. We ended up walking until the sun had set and found ourselves completely alone in the palace garden which at night was covered by mist and mysterious shadows. The darkness was so intense that we had difficulties finding our way back and climbed the Longevity hill using our cellphones as flashlights.
The long Corridor with around 14.000 paintings of scenes from West Lake in Huangzhou, Chinese classic literature, flowers, architecture and landscapes.
The corridor is also called ‘the colored paintings museum’., or simply the Long Gallery
One of the four octagonal pavilions symbolizing the seasons
Pavilion seen from the outside
The Tower of Buddhist Incense
The palace attracts many visitors
One of the garden bridges
The Tower of Buddhist Incense and the Summer Palace towering over the lake
The backside of the palace
House in the palace garden on the path through Kunming lake
The Long Corridor at night...
...only lit up by the camera's flashlight
Beautiful pavilions are also found at the other side of the lake (here after sundown)
The marble boat looking more light the Flying Dutchman
Kunming Lake at night in artificial city lights
Thanks for tuning in!
​
-Two travel bees