The Temple of Heaven was where the emperors of China spoke to the sky. Built in the early fifteenth century under the Yongle emperor, the same ruler who ordered the Forbidden City, it was the stage for a ritual that the Ming and Qing emperors performed each year, at the winter solstice, to pray for good harvests and report to Heaven on the state of the empire. Heaven was imagined as round and Earth as square, and the geometry of the complex follows that idea: round buildings and altars on a square ground.
The most famous structure is the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, a circular, triple-roofed hall covered in deep blue tiles, held up by great wooden pillars and built, tradition says, without a single nail. Nearby, the Circular Mound Altar is a three-tiered marble platform where the emperor stood at the centre and the sounds of his voice seemed to rise from the stone. A short distance away, the Echo Wall, a curved enclosure, carries whispers around its circumference. UNESCO inscribed the temple in 1998.
The park is also a living part of Beijing. At dawn, locals gather under the old cypress trees to do tai chi, sing, play cards, practise calligraphy with water on the pavement and dance. It is one of the best places in the city to watch ordinary life. Come early, in the cool air, when the tour groups have not yet arrived, and plan on a couple of hours of walking.
For a rider, Beijing is more a place to visit than to ride in. Traffic is dense, and rules on motorcycles and on foreign vehicles are strict, with restrictions in the central city, so check what applies before bringing a bike. Spring and autumn are the best seasons, with clear skies, while summer is hot and humid and winter is cold and dry. Fuel, food and lodging are everywhere in a city of this size, and the nearest areas of countryside lie in the hills to the north and west, where the Ming Tombs and the Great Wall can be reached.