I visited the Summer Palace in June 2024. The palace is located at the outskirts of Beijing so going there by public transport takes some time. I took the subway to Beigongmen station that makes you to access the palace grounds from the north entrance. This entrance was quite peaceful as bus tour groups seem to enter from the east entrance. I bought the ticket that allows access to all the different sites in the palace grounds but you can also opt for cheaper ticket that allows you to stroll just the gardens, which are still a lot to see.

Right after the entrance you're already on the first sight of interest, the Suzhou Street. This is a fake village made to look like the canals in Suzhou and it was made for the royals to play peasants doing their shopping. You can go walk on along the canal and even take a boat tour but I just admired this fun sight from the bridge that goes over it. After the Suzhou Street I started to climb over the Longevity Hill. I walked through the "Four Great Regions" which is a building complex resembling a Tibetan temple. After that I reached the top of the hill and started to hike down towards the Kunming lake and more central parts of the palace complex.

Climbing the hill in humid summer day was quite a sweaty activity but after reaching the lake I understood why the royals came here to cool down as the lakeside provided a nice cooling breeze. Along the lake goes the Long Corridor, a covered pathway that connects the different parts of the palace. I followed it to the section that I would call the central part of the palace, the Hall of Dispelling Clouds and the Tower of Buddhist Incense. Entering the hall and tower requires the more expensive ticket but you can also pay the extra fee here if you happened to buy the cheaper ticket at the entrance. The tower rises high above the palace grounds on the Longevity Hill and requires quite many steps to reach it, but the views from the top will be worth the trouble. You can see the Kunming lake in all its glory and the Seventeen-Arch Bridge that crosses the lake to Nanhu island. The tower itself is also beautiful with amazing paintings decorating the building that surrounds it. Inside the tower is a golden Buddha statue. You can see a tall pagoda far in the distance that looked very scenic.

After coming back to the lakeside from the tower I then continued to visit the parts around the eastern entrance. I saw the Hall of Benevolence and Longevity where the emperor and empress hold the court sessions and the Dehe Garden that houses the opera house, that was the largest in Imperial China. It is quite magnificent building still. These parts of the palace are the most crowded and you'll most likely walk following tour groups past different palace buildings. I then returned back towards west and checked out the Marble Boat, a pavilion on water that resembles a boat made out of marble. The boat was built on money that was supposed to go towards modernization of Chinese navy.

I had decided that I will exit the palace grounds from the west entrance so from the boat I walked to the Western Dam and started to walk along it. From here you'll get the best views of the Longevity Hill and the Tower of Buddhist Incense across the lake (pictured). The paths on the dam are also very quiet and I was just by myself for long periods of time. There are some dedicated spots for bird-watching, I could hear a cuckoo bird but I wasn't sure if it was a real bird or did they play the sounds from loudspeakers, as along the lake there are speakers playing quietly traditional Chinese music. I encountered many black swans and their babies, though. You'll cross many beautiful bridges with Jade Belt Bridge being the most over-the-top one that I encountered. As clouds started to get more dark and I could hear thunder roaring, I quickly exited the palace grounds through the west entrance. From here you can catch a tram from Summer Palace West Gate station that connects to the subway lines. The west entrance seemed very quiet so if you want avoid lines, enter the palace from here.

The Summer Palace is huge area and you'll need multiple visits to cover it all. I would like to walk around the whole Kunming lake if I visit the palace again. I was surprised how vast the palace area was, and how much climbing was included in the visit. The palace is an amazing masterpiece of Chinese landscape gardens. It is sad that the palace grounds were looted by the British and French troops during the Second Opium War so there aren't much original things left but the rebuilding of everything afterwards was a magnificent achievement by Empress Dowager Cixi, who then made the Summer Palace her primary residence. The palace is popular with Chinese tourists but I saw there much less other foreign tourists than in other Beijing sites. For some reason it isn't that famous attraction for foreign visitors but I think it's a must-visit for anyone visiting Beijing.