Summer Palace

Chengde Summer Palace, also called Hot River Palace is located in the north of Chengde city and is where emperors from China's ancient Qing dynasty spent their summers to escape the summer heat in Beijing.

The palace was built during early 18th century during the reign of Emperor Qianlong with an effort of more than 90 years to compete. It contains emperor's residential buildings, royal gardens and some magnificent temples.

The most two famous Qing emperors, Qinglong and Kangxi spent nearly half of the year here each year during their reins and Chengde thus became the second most important political center after Beijing.

Nowadays, the historically important Chengde not only serves as a tourist destination but also as a live museum to explore and define the history and culture of the Qing Dynasty because of its legacy that remains.

Chengde Summer Palace is the largest surviving royal garden in China, occupying an area of 564000 square meters, even bigger than the Summer Palace in Beijing. China's ancient ambitious emperors always glued their eyes to their territory, even when they were on vacation.

The notion is embodied in the elaborate layout of the Chengde Summer Palace, which consists of several parts representing China's multi-featured landscapes e.g. the affuent rice plain terrain south of the Yangtze River and mountainous and bleak areas in Northwest China form a mini-territorial sweep of his empire. The residential area located on the southern side houses more than 20000 royal items, which are to be of great tourism and historical value.

Chengde Summer Palace is a fine example of China's royal gardens, which used various traditional ways to combine features of southern China and the grassland in nomadic north of China in an arrangement with more than 120 buildings.

Eight outer Temples

The Eight Temples are located in the east and north surrounding the Palace complex in the shape of numerous stars embosoming the moon, which symbolizes the unification of the nation and friendly relationships between the various nationalities in the country.

The temples stand in the north of the Great Wall and eight among them were governed directly by Lifan Court in Qing dynasty and registered in Beijing Lama Print Office, hence the name of Eight Outer Temples.

The Eight Temples are the embodiment of the combination of the Han and Tibetan art of architecture. They along with the Summer Palace was listed to the world Heritage site together in September, 1994.

The Eight Outer Temples actually refers to the historically existing 12 temples- the Boren Temple, Boshan Temple, Puning Temple, An'yuan temple, Pule Temple, Puyou Temple, Putuozongcheng Temple, Guang'an Temple, Suxiang Temple, Luoshan Hall, the temple for praying happiness and longevity and Kuixing Attic, but only 7 them are well preserved.. The Boshan Temple, Guang'an Temple and Kuixing Attic do not exist now, the Puyou Temple and Luohan Hall have suffered serious damage and only some parts remain.

The twelve temples were built during the heydays under the reign of the two emperor Qianlong and Kangxi successively with 67 years' effort to complete. The Boren Temple and Boshan Temple were set up during the emperor Kangxi's reign, while the other ten were completed during Emperor Qianlong period.

These temples were mainly used by the upper classes and dignitaries of the west and north minorities in China to have an audience with the emperor. The architecture mainly built in three manners: Tibetan style, Han style and the mixture of the two. These ornate majestic and resplendent temples are sharp contrasts to the palace complex of its primitive simplicity with green bricks and grey tiles.

The Eight Temples are ethereal examples of combination of the Han building style and Tibetan building art. Putuozongcheng Temple, largest one in scale, was a replica of the Potala Palace in Tibet and is nicknamed "the Little Patala".

It was constructed for the purpose of celebrating Emperor Qianlong's 60th birthday and his mother's 80th birthday. The temple is magnificent and spectacular with clinquant gold-plates and copper tiles. Chengde tops the world in many aspects.

Take Puning Temple for example, there is the largest woodcarving figure of Buddha--the Kwan-yin Bodhisattva with a thousand hands in the world-wide in its Dacheng Attic. The statue of the woodcaring Buddha is 22.28 meters in height and 110 tons in weight. It was carved with the wood of pines, sypresses, elms, basses and firry lumbers.

Putuozongcheng Temple

The temple has been chosen by many travelers as the alternate of the Polata Palace in Tibet owing to the exact resemblance between the two. Even the name of the awkward four-syllable words is the sinicized version of its counterpart in Tibet.

This temple was first built in the thirty-second year of Emperor Qianlong for the purpose of celebrating his 60th birthday and his mother's 80th birthday. It is the biggest temple of the Eight Temples and was nicknamed as the "Little Pltala Palace".

The most conspicuous characteristics of this temple rely on its Tibetan style. Within the temple, about sixty flat-roof-house-like white platforms and Sanskrit white platforms lays freely beyond the axes to confront the mountainous terrain.

The main buildings big red square-shaped platform at the top of the mountain is very attractive in contrast with the surrounding white attics. This platform was used by the emperors to hold great religious rituals and meet the tribal chiefs from important ethnic groups as well as high officials.

The overall arrangement consists of three parts: the front part, the middle part and the back part.

The front part begins at the five-hole stone bridge in front of the temple, including the mountain gate, stele pavilion and five-tower gates. In the middle, there are colored glaze archway and tower-courts of the white platform.

The big red platform at the back is the main body of the building group. The mountain gate and the stele pavilion follow the way of Han style in building palaces during the Qing dynasty.

And there are inscriptions and carvings in characters used by Man people, Han people, Mongolians and Tibetans in the pavilion, like A Record of Putuozongcheng Temple, A record of Tu'erhute Tribe Coming Over and Pledging Allegiance and A Recsssord of Showing solicitude for Tu'erhute Tribe. These inscriptions are of precious historical value.

On the flat-roof platform in north of the pavilion, five Lama Towers were successively set up in different colors: black ,white, yellow, green and red.

Puning Temple

Puning Temple is also called Big Buddha Temple because of the big Buddha in it.

The temple was built from the twentieth year to the twenty-third year of Emperor Qianlong in the style of the earliest monastery of the Tibetan Buddhism-Sanmoye Temple. It is of a gigantic scale and covers an area of 23000 square meters.

Inside the temple, there are gate hall, bell-drum tower and inscription pavilion on the middle axes. In the inscription pavilion stand the monuments of A Record of Puning Temple, A Record of Pacifying Other Tribes and A Record of Pacifying Their Descendents. Right behind the inscription pavilion are the Heaven King Palace and Daxingbao Palace.

And further interior lays the Dacheng Pavilion, which is a standard Tibetan-style building with a height of 36.75 meters. Inside the pavilion stands the gilded statue of the Kwan-yin Bodhisattva with a thousand hands and a thound eyes, which is carved with the wood of pines, sypresses, elms, basses and  firry lumbers.

It is the largest wooden statue in China and has been recorded in the Guiness Encyclopedia. Shancai and Longnv stand in mellow posture on the two sides of the statue. A Miaoyan Room and Scripture-telling Hall flanking the pavilion were for the emperors to listen to the scripture and have a rest.

During the Qing dynasty, Puning Temple would hold temple affairs regularly during the time from lunar December 25th to December 27th and from lunar January 8th to January 15th each year. The Lamas of the Eight Temples gathered to give performances of Buddhist dances, which attracted endless stream of villagers around the area.

Fengming Grassland

Fengning Grassland, also called Fengning Datan Grassland is the nearest natural rich grasslands next to the capital, Beijing, some 280kms. away. That's why it is called No.1 grassland in northern Beijing. It is a great summer holiday resort for escaping the hot summer sun.

The grassland is situated above the dam on a vast plateau covered with green grasses and wild flowers, Flocks and herds are everywhere where many of the colorful locals can be seen tending their stock in the fields.

The area has been called the warehouse of medicine for centuries, where there are more than 300 kinds of plants, most of which are of extremely high value and very popular such as Gold-needle flower and canary-creeper.

A famous scenic spot on the grassland is Jiulong Pines. One of the finest examples must be the Jiulong Pine Tree (or Nine-Dragon Pine), found inside Jietai temple and said to be over 1300 years old. The Nine-Dragon Cypresses of the Liao Dynasty in the Temple of Heaven look as if there are dragons coiling around their trunks.

In summer, it is extremely cool with the average temperature of 17.4 centigrade degree and is thus a good place to avoid the summer heat. As a tourist, you can enjoy the beauty of the grassland's scene on horseback riding in the gentle breeze and taste as much as you like the strong local conditions and customs of Man and Mongolian nationalities.

The grassland provides a complete set of facilities and equipment for traveling, simply relaxing, escaping the summer heat and enjoying your holiday. In recent years, many vacation villages and vacation centers have been erected, where tourists can take part in a range of activities like horse-riding, camel-riding, shooting, archery and campfire parties, in addition to snow-skating, mountain-climbing and karaoke-singing etc.