Forbidden City Tiananmen Square 4/7/24

Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, Beijing

We started our afternoon in Tiananmen Square. Tiananmen Square or Tian'anmen Square is a city square in the city center of Beijing, China, named after the eponymous Tiananmen ("Gate of Heavenly Peace") located to its north, which separates it from the Forbidden City. The square contains the Monument to the People's Heroes, the Great Hall of the People, the National Museum of China, and the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong. Mao Zedong. Many of us remember it from 1989, The Tiananmen Square protests, known in China as the June Fourth Incident. It was a sad day in China history. The entire square is quite impressive and the buildings and monuments very imposing. We spent some time here - but as always, not enough.

The Great Hall of the People

The statue in front of Mao's mausoleum - the Monument to the People's Heroes

A lot of military presence - I believe they are stationed at all times by the entrance to the Forbidden City

The building in the lower left is the last gate standing in the square

Tiananmen Square being the gateway to the Forbidden City, we made our way to the entrance to visit this almost wonder of the world. The Forbidden City was built in the early 15th century for Emperors and their concubines. The complex is surrounded by Gardens and Temples. It acted as a residential and political center with almost 9,000 buildings. If they had an alternative list to the seven new wonders of the world, this complex would surely be in the top 10. This is an awesome site to see.

The Forbidden City gained its name as it was off-limits to the general public for over 500 years, only with the special permission of the emperor could “ordinary” people enter the palace complex, and that was a rare occurrence. The official Chinese name of the Forbidden City is “Zijin Cheng,” which translates to “Purple Forbidden City.”

This is the world’s largest imperial palace. It occupies 720,000 sq m (7,750,000 sq ft), over three times larger than the Louvre Palace in France. It took an estimated one million laborers to complete the construction of the Forbidden City, and has more than 90 palace quarters and courtyards, 980 buildings and over 8,728 rooms. That's room for a lot of concubines!!

Home to 24 Emperors. Emperor Yongle, third of the Ming Dynasty, began its construction in 1406 and it was completed in 1420. Fourteen Ming Emperors held power there until the Manchus took possession in 1644 and moved the capital to Shenyang for a few months. The Qing Dynasty soon moved the capital back to Beijing and the Forbidden City. Ten Qing Emperors ruled there until 1912, with the creation of the Republic of China.

Due to its cultural significance and unique beauty, the Forbidden City is extremely popular with both Chinese and foreign tourists. The palace museum boasts 14 million visitors annually, more than any single section of the Great Wall.

And so, us "ordinary" people headed in.... this is the gate, front and back as you head into the grounds. The photo on top right is a stock photo but I wanted to add so you could see how the palace looks as you enter. It truly takes your breath away.

The grounds are massive leading up to the main palace. A lot of people visiting but it did not feel crowded it is so large. The lower picture is the Palace of Heavenly Purity. It is the largest of 3 halls, the other 2 at each end which are the Hall of Union and the Palace of Earthly Tranquility. Bet that's where the concubines lived. Haha.

And there were many Chinese dressed in traditional costumes. The children were precious.

Behind the Hall of Preserved Harmony, in the middle of the stairway, is a huge piece of marble carving of nine dragons playing with pearls. It is the biggest stone sculpture in the Forbidden City. It was originally sculpted in the Ming dynasty and re-sculpted in the Qing dynasty. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, anyone who was caught touching this holy stone would be punished by death penalty! The huge stone was hauled into the palace all the way from Fangshan, about 70 kilometers away from Beijing city proper. The hard transportation took about a month and 20,000 men and thousands of mules and horses. The 16.57 meters long, 3.07 meters wide and 1.7 meters thick stone weighs about 250 tons. It was said that a well was dug every 500 meters and water was pumped out onto the road to facilitate transportation!

The front of the main palace is filled with bridges over the river that is shaped like a bow and arrow with walkways bordered by beautifully detailed railways.

The bottom left picture is the roof of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the most important building in China, housing the emperor's throne. There are 9 mythical animals at each of the roof's corners, a dragon, phoenix, lion, horse, seahorse, a lion/dragon, a fish dragon, a bull like dragon and a flying monkey.

And here is the throne room... not my photo - grabbed it off the internet.

Tortoises are considered a symbol of strength, and cranes represent longevity and harmony. These bronze statues were in a courtyard by one of the palaces.

The amount of detail is incredible and is in amazingly good condition.

The statuary and bronzes were in full display

More traditional wear

At the Imperial Garden, cypresses and Chinese wisteria in the garden are all hundreds of years old. There are more than 160 ancient trees, which are distributed around the garden. In addition, this garden is also interspersed with various hill stones and mini scapes. The Piled Elegance Hill is made entirely of a pile of peculiar looking stones and a dragon head is carved onto the 2 stone lions guarding the hill. Pictures do not do it justice

From there we headed to our hotel for the evening. As you can see, we were slumming it! absolutely lovely. After a few cocktails and some snacks, I headed to the room - it was already 8:30 pm by the time we checked in and I was beat. 4.5 miles to walk Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, plus the Temple of Heaven. A very full day. Mickey headed out to the shopping mall close to the hotel while I headed to the room.