Summer Palace

The Summer Palace with its cool features - water, gardens and hills - was place of choice for vacationing emperors and Dowager Empresses. It was badly damaged by Anglo-French troops during the Second Opium War (1860) and its restoration became a pet project of the Empress Dowager Cixi, last of the Qing dynasty rulers.

Money earmarked for a modern navy was used for the project but, in a bit of whimsical irony, the only thing that was completed was the restoration of a marble boat. The boat now sits at the edge of the lake in all its immobile and nonmilitary glory. The Palace's full restoration was hampered by the disintegration of the Qing dynasty and the Boxer Rebellion. The place is packed to the gunwales in summer with Beijing residents taking full advantage of Kunming Lake, which takes up three-quarters of the park.

The main building is the lyrically named Hall of Benevolence & Longevity, while along the north shore is the Long Corridor so named because it's, um, long. There's over 700m (2300ft) of corridor, filled with mythical paintings and scenes. If some of the paintings have a new patina, that's because many of the murals were painted over during the Cultural Revolution.