I visited the Forbidden City in June 2024. You need to buy the tickets for the palace beforehand online. I did it through the official site and had no problems with it. Tickets become available 7 days in advance and if you plan to visit on weekend, on public holiday or during the morning slot you need to be on the website right when new batch of tickets become available. I found the afternoon tickets to be available even for next day on some weekdays but I scored for myself morning ticket during a weekday.

This site will be busy no matter when you visit and it becomes apparent already at the Tiananmen East metro station as you might need to queue even to exit the station. After exiting the Tiananmen East metro station the info signs will guide you towards eastern entrance to Forbidden City but I followed the masses to the Tiananmen Square. From there you walk through the Gate of Heavenly Peace with Mao looking at you peacefully from his iconic giant portrait. After multiple ticket and security checks you finally arrive to the Meridian Gate where the actual Forbidden City palace complex starts.

After walking through the Meridian Gate you are already stunned by the view of the Gate of Supreme Harmony and the Golden Stream that flows through the courtyard. Through west side of the courtyard you can visit Hall of Martial Valour that housed ceramics exhibition at the time of my visit, very much worth of visit. Not many people venture out there and it was the most peaceful part of Forbidden City that I visited. After passing the Gate of Supreme Harmony you are met with the best sight of the palace complex, the giant courtyard with Hall of Supreme Harmony. You won't experience much of that harmony with all the tour groups and their loud speakers but it's still a magnificent sight. The buildings in Forbidden City are decorated beautifully which you don't really notice until you're right next to them. There are also beautiful bronze statues of animals on show. You can't enter the Hall of Supreme Harmony or any other halls but there aren't much items on show inside of them anyway.

Next I visited the eastern palaces which include the Clock Museum (worth the visit) and the Treasure Gallery (too crowded but beautiful decorative items). Here you can also find the beautiful Nine Dragon Screen that protects the palace from evil spirits and the magnificent opera house. The eastern palaces require an extra ticket that on the website is titled as the ticket for the Treasure Gallery but it includes the whole eastern palaces section, which is very much worth the visit as you get close with the palace buildings and can admire the details much better. After the eastern palaces I walked around the Imperial Garden and checked out Palace of Heavenly Purity, Hall of Union and Palace of Earthly Tranquility. I had quick look at the western palaces section but as at that point I had already stayed in the palace for almost 4 hours and temperature had risen to 36 degrees Celsius, I decided to end my visit and exit through the North Gate. 

At the Meridian Gate I had rented an audio guide for the visit. They advertise that they got them in dozens of languages so I decided to check out how their Finnish audio guide was. Well, firstly it took some time until the workers at the audio guide booth understood that there's a language called Finnish and they truly have audio guide in that language, so I assume the smaller languages aren't requested very often. And secondly, the audio guide was bad. It only worked at the biggest attractions but most of the palace complex didn't have narration in Finnish, and the narrator was barely understandable with her extremely heavy Chinese accent. But the map on the audio guide was very helpful for walking around the palace complex. I also found the information signs of different attractions being quite good so the audio guide for me was a flop. Otherwise the visit was surprisingly pleasant despite the crowds and heat and I enjoyed truly my time in Forbidden City. When I return to Beijing I will visit Forbidden City again and check out the sections I missed on the first time.