Temple of Heaven: an Imperial Sacrificial and Summer Palace

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Temple of Heaven: an Imperial Sacrificial

   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.

   Read the complete Temple of Heaven: an Imperial Sacrificial write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Temple of Heaven: an Imperial Sacrificial is where the day begins. Next is Summer Palace.

2. 2. Summer Palace

   The Summer Palace is the Qing court's idea of escaping the city, and even with the modern capital spread out around it, the idea still works. The core is Kunming Lake, a large artificial basin, with Longevity Hill rising from its northern shore and covered in halls, pavilions and the tall Tower of Buddhist Incense. The Qianlong Emperor shaped the garden in the mid eighteenth century, reportedly to celebrate his mother's birthday, and modelled parts of it on the scenery around West Lake in Hangzhou. British and French troops burned it during the Second Opium War in 1860, and the Empress Dowager Cixi rebuilt it later in the century, which is where the famous story comes from that she paid for it with money meant for the navy. The marble boat moored at the lakeshore, which cannot sail, has become the punchline of that tale.

   Read the complete Summer Palace write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Summer Palace comes up 22 km in. Next is Summer Palace.

3. 3. Summer Palace

   The Empress Dowager Cixi is said to have spent money meant for the Chinese navy on rebuilding the Summer Palace, and the story is captured in stone: a marble boat moored permanently at the edge of Kunming Lake, a ship that will never sail. Whether the tale is entirely fair to her is debated, but the palace itself is beyond argument, a vast imperial garden of lakes, hills, halls, pavilions, bridges and covered walkways on the north-western edge of Beijing, laid out in the eighteenth century under the Qianlong Emperor, burned by British and French troops in 1860, rebuilt and burned again in 1900, and restored once more. It was listed by UNESCO in 1998 as a masterpiece of Chinese landscape garden design.

   Read the complete Summer Palace write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   43 km in you reach Summer Palace. Next is back through Summer Palace.

4. 4. back through Summer Palace

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Summer Palace write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Summer Palace, late in the day. Next is Temple of Heaven: an Imperial Sacrificial.

5. 5. Temple of Heaven: an Imperial Sacrificial

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Temple of Heaven: an Imperial Sacrificial write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Temple of Heaven: an Imperial Sacrificial. That is the ride.