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Beijing's original Summer Palace, the Yuanmingyuan (daily 9am-6pm; Y10), is a thirty-minute walk north of Beida, on the route of bus #375, which you catch from a terminus just north of Xizhimen subway stop, or bus #322, which leaves from a terminus outside the zoo. Built by the Qing Emperor Kangxi in the early eighteenth century, the palace, nicknamed China's Versailles by Europeans, once boasted the largest royal gardens in the world - with some two hundred pavilions and temples set around a series of lakes and natural springs. Marina Warner recreates the scene in The Dragon Empress : Scarlet and golden halls, miradors, follies and gazebos clustered around artificial hills and lakes. Tranquil tracts of water were filled with fan tailed goldfish with telescopic eyes, and covered with lotus and lily pads; a superabundance of flowering shrubs luxuriated in the gardens; antlered deer wandered through the grounds; ornamental ducks and rare birds nestled on the lakeside. Today, however, there is little enough to hang your imagination upon. In 1860 the entire complex was burnt and destroyed by British and French troops, ordered by the Earl of Elgin to make the imperial court "see reason" during the Opium Wars. The troops had previously spent twelve days looting the imperial treasures, many of which found their way to the Louvre and British Museum - their return as yet undemanded. The park extends over 350 hectares but the only really identifiable ruins are the Hall of Tranquillity in the northeastern section. The stone and marble remains of fountains and columns hint at how fascinating the original must once have been, with its marriage of European Rococo decoration and Chinese motifs. Today it's a popular picnic spot, particularly among foreign residents in Beijing, who perhaps "ponder ? imperial powers destroying human civilization" as a sign instructs. The government is jazzing the place up with a programme of restoration and construction, but this remains an attraction wholly eclipsed by the new Summer Palace.
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