The Summer Palace was a formal royal retreat most associated with Empress Dowager Cixi. Now it is a lovely oasis in Beijing with pavilions, bridges, walkways and gardens scattered along a huge lake. We walked around looking at the pavilions with the paintings on the ceiling that tell the history of the palace. We sat at the edge of the lake while the boys looked for fish and just did some people watching, many locals and their children come here to spend time. It was a nice peaceful time in the middle of a bustling city.
We had a flight to Shanghai in the late afternoon so stopped at Olympic Park. What most people remember is the Beijing National Stadium aka the “Birds Nest” where the 2008 Olympic opening and closing ceremonies took place, also many athletic events as it can hold 91,000 people.
The flight to Shanghai was pretty quick, just 2 hours and 10 minutes. Shanghai is a great base for exploring three of China’s prettiest and most historic cities in the Jiangnan region which means “south of the Yangtze”. So it is delta country with rivers and canals through the beautiful cities.
From there we drove about an hour and a half to Suzhou, checked in our hotel and passed out!