The very front is a building that could be a palace by itself with a huge courtyard and an intricate roof but as we continued onward it got bigger and more intricate, and more colourful, with every little detail and every carving. It would have taken forever for just one part of the huge expanse of the Summer Palace. We climbed up a few stairways to the top of Longevity Hill and came out to more temples and buildings where I found a great photo spot out across the city.
Then we came to a huge temple eight stories tall. Every little design and all the painting was perfect. All this for one Emperor was crazy.
It turns out though that this was only half of the summer palace. Over the other side of Longevity Hill was a huge horizon of temples and buildings leading out to Kunming Lake. Kunming Lake is a man- made lake that was originally reservoirs of water for the city and crops but was turned into an imperial garden after 3500 years of use. The garden was built after the practice which is of one pond and three hills. The Kunming is surrounded by three hills, one of which is Longevity. The Summer Palace was built in 1700 and named Qingyi Garden but was destroyed by British and French Troops in 1866 and it was rebuilt as the Summer Palace. Then in 1900 is was damaged by European forces and was looted of many of its treasures. It was repaired but in 1940 it was damaged a third time and was repaired to the way it is today.
After taking in the view from the top of Longevity Hill we walked down to the lakeside part of the Summer Palace with beautiful willow trees and temples built out over the water. The whole place was beautiful and so intricate.
We explored the vast gardens and then started to head for the exit and got lost in another maze of temples before finding our way out at another one of the other entrances to the Summer Palace.
We went in search of a taxi van that could fit us all but we could only find four seat taxis so we went back towards the main entrance and finally found a taxi van to take us to our new hotel for the night. We got our bags out of storage and checked into our room. It was one of the best rooms we've ever had with two big bedrooms, a bath the size of a hot tub, a big living room and kitchen. We settled in for the night while Mom, Dad and Sage went to get some dinner. They had a really hard time finding anything to eat in the dark city where no one spoke English but they did find some good bean sprout Chinese type burritos. They even found a food market with live scorpions on sticks and fried bugs.
Total taxis: 3
Total miles walked: 8.1 miles
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