Gallery - Chengde, the royal summer resort

Chengde, 250 km NE of Beijing, was an imperial summer resort in Qing dynasty. It has the splendid color, gorgeous building style and elaborate paintings and carvings. The Imperial Summer Resort covers an area of 5.6 million square meters. The court lived here from May to October each year. In 1860, the court fled here as Anglo-French forces approached Beijing and the emperor died here 2 years later. The resort has 9 courtyards, 11 Lama temples, beautiful gardens, pavilions and a herd of deer. Notable are the temples. They are patterned after the original temples in various provinces, such as Tibet, Jiangsu and Beijing. The Jinshanling section of the Great Wall is 110 km away