Private 5-Hour Summer Palace In-depth Tour including Boat Ride

Highlights

Inclusions

Itinerary

1. Choose the start time suits your best and await pickup from your Beijing City accommodation, where you board a vehicle destined for the west gate of the Summer Palace. Along the way, your knowledgeable guide is on hand to provide expert insight and interesting historical anecdotes. Feel free to ask questions if you have.

   30 minAdmission included

2. After enter the Summer Palace, immerse yourself in a spectacular view of this beautiful garden, learn all the elements required to built the most amazing and beautiful paradigms of what a garden can be in the Qing Dynasty. From here in Summer Time you will take a relax boat ride to the South Island, if there is no boat you will walk along different bridges and passages to reach the north. Your boat cruise concludes at the south island, stroll around the courtyards and halls here, explore the largest bridge inside the Summer Palace at Seventeen Arches Bridge which was built in the 18th century. The Seventeen Arch Bridge looks like a rainbow arching over the water. There are 544 distinctive lions on the columns of the white marble parapets. Learn the stories behind them from your tour guide's commentary.

   1 hAdmission included

3. Stroll along the Kunming Lake then reach the Hall of Benevolence and Longevity where Empress Dowager Cixi and Emperor Guangxu took charge of state affairs. Gain deep insight into the histories happened here. Continue to explore the Garden of Virtue and Harmony which was the largest stage in China at the time. Check out different exhibition rooms, in which many national treasures as well as the daily articles of the Empress Dowager Cixi are on display.

   40 minAdmission included

4. Stroll through different courtyards and halls, listen to the detailed stories about Express Empress Dowager Cixi, get to know how did she controlled the country by put the little emperor on the throne. Move on to the Long Corridor. First built in 1750 with 273 rooms, the corridor was fully painted with colorful designs and pictures, winding its way along the lake like a colorful ribbon. Four octagonal pavilions with double roofs were built at regular intervals to represent the four seasons. The gallery has about 8000 colorful paintings, which, as the most charming part of the gallery, depict landscapes, human figures, battle scenes, flowers, birds, etc.

   40 minAdmission included

5. Next, explore the middle axis of the Summer Palace, which including the Hall of Dispelling Clouds where Empress Dowager Cixi celebrated her birthday and received birthday gifts from officials and foreign envoys. Climb up to the Tower of Buddhist Incense, which Empress Dowager Cixi held praying ceremonies on the 1st and 15th of each lunar month. From here, you will enjoy a bird's eye view of the scenery of the whole palace.

   40 minAdmission included

6. Your next stop is the Marble boat, which was first built in 1750 by Emperor Qianlong which taking the implying meaning of "the water can hold the boat as well as topple the boat", he want to use the the Marble Boat symbolizes the steadfast rule of the Qing dynasty.

   20 minAdmission included

7. The rest of your trip will explore the other side of the Longevity hill, you will stop at the Suzhou market street. Built after the market street in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, the street gave the imperial family an illusion to take part in the daily life of ordinary people which was forbidden to them. When imperial nobles came to visit the street, eunuchs, aiming to please their masters, would act as tradesmen and customers to produce a prosperous scene in the street. Your wonderful tour will ends here, after the tour you will be transferred back to your hotel in Beijing City.

   1 hAdmission included

Cancellation

Free cancellation up to 24 hours before the experience starts, for a full refund.

Reviews

Ratings come from 1 reviews collected by our booking partner. They are travellers' own words, in the order they were written — never reordered to flatter the experience.

Know before you go

How it compares in Beijing

• Its from-price is 30% below the median of the 3624 experiences we list in Beijing.
• It is shorter than most of them.
• By number of reviews it ranks 1279 of 3624.
• The operator lists free cancellation on it.

About Beijing

Beijing, China's capital for centuries, holds imperial palaces, sacred temples and stretches of the Great Wall within reach of its modern boulevards.

At the city's heart, the Forbidden City spreads behind vermilion walls, a labyrinth of halls and courtyards that housed the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Tiananmen Square lies to its south, and the hill of Jingshan Park to its north gives the finest view over its golden roofs. The Temple of Heaven, set in a park where locals practise tai chi and dance, is a masterpiece of imperial design.

Top-ranked sights in Beijing: Mutianyu Great Wall, Forbidden City (Palace Museum), Tiananmen Square (Tiananmen Guangchang).

See all 3624 experiences in Beijing