winter at the summer palace

One of the advantages of bus tours is the ability to see a lot of sights in a limited time.

The disadvantage of bus tours is the limited time to see a lot of sights.

The “if this is Tuesday, it must be Belgium” syndrome set in with our third major sight of our first tour day -- the Summer Palace.

The Ming emperors built the Summer Palace as a seasonal get-away from the heat (both physical and political) of the Beijing summers.  It is not far from the Forbidden City.  But far enough for the men who carried the emperor in his processional sedan chair.

If you are thinking summer camp, you are close.  There is a lake.  And boats -- including one made of marble.  And forests.  But the comparison stops there.

This is a summer camp in the rarefied manner that the Forbidden City palaces are mere houses.

The emperor had political duties to perform.  So, there are the usual array of political and religious buildings.  (The vandals of the cultural Revolution managed to smash the Buddhas that once graced the temple complex.)

But the lake is the centerpiece of the Summer Palace.  In the summer, it must be stunning with its lotus pond.  In the winter, it is simply cold. 

If the surface water in the photograph seems calm, the reason is simple.  It is ice.  Ice thick enough for adult men to walk on.
 

The park has been open to the public since the Communist revolution.  No longer is it restricted to the emperor and his retainers.  But irony can run as thick as lake ice.

In the middle of the lake is a former palace where a dowager empress imprisoned her emperor son.  It is now a restaurant.  A restaurant available only to politicians and oligarchs.

The revolution did not end all aspects of feudalism and emperor worship.  Not even on a Belgium Tuesday.