1 Day Beijing Royal Cultural Sites Walking Tour

Today’s sightseeing will involve a lot of walking, so please wear a pair of comfortable shoes. At the agreed time in the morning, your professional English-speaking guide will greet you at your hotel lobby and get you in a hailed taxi. En route, your guide will brief you about this tour and you can perhaps engage in a light-hearted talk to get familiar with each other. Now your Beijing cultural tour officially unfolds!

The first stop will be Yonghe Temple, also known as Yonghe Lamasery or Lama Temple, a proxy of the Qin Empire (1644 - 1911) administrating Tibetan Buddhist affairs from across the country. You will learn from your guide that it was first a prince mansion that later witnessed two Qing emperors being born. Appreciate architecture with red walls and yellow glazed roofs, similar to the Forbidden City, and the Buddhist treasures housed within. Enjoy an incense-scented tranquility and, if you like, collect a bundle of incense to burn and make a wish just like most locals - remember to hold incense in your left hand, support them with your right hand, and raise them over your head while wishing. Each hall has Buddha worshipped for certain blessings, such as the Yonghegong Hall for wealth, the Medicine Hall for health, and the Shilun Hall for turn of fate.

Out of the Yonghe Temple from its south gate, let’s walk several minutes to reach the Guozijian Street, the only street in Beijing with “pailou” - a traditional archway and there are four here - preserved to date. Dating from the Yuan Dynasty (1271 - 1368), this is a hutong alley to find not only historical sites next to each other, but also life oozing from the inhabited courtyard houses on either side. You will also want to capture how the towering Chinese scholar trees and the vermillion walls are complementing each other. And no wonder it must be the scholar trees - the street had been the academic center for so many centuries! We will cross an ornately-constructed archway and pass Temple of Kitchen God to find our next destinations: Temple of Confucius and Imperial Academy (Guozijian).

In another minutes’ walk, we will be at the Xianshi Gate (Gate of the First Teacher) of the Temple of Confucius. Since the Yuan Dynasty, people often gathered in Temple of Confucius to fete the Confucius, the world-famous sage who lived 2,500 years ago and the founder of Confucianism. Scholars desired to gain official titles in the court especially loved to visit this site, where they could pray for blessings for the imperial examination. Even emperors would hold grand ceremonies here to pay homage to this great philosopher; in the main hall of the temple, you get to relive the scene before the spirit tablets of the Confucius and his great disciples.

We will then head to the adjoining Imperial Academy, which sits to the west of the Temple of Confucius with a layout representing the traditional rule for educational system that “school should be on the left and the Confucius Temple on the right”. It is the only imperial college left in China and used to be the top state-run academic institute from its establishment in 1287 through the Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties until its closure in 1911. Visit major buildings along the central axis like the Glazed Archway, Biyong Hall and Yilun Hall, the latter two for the emperors to give lessons; explore subsidiary yet also interesting areas; and delve into China’s profound Confucianism-influenced educational heritage. Stroll through a gallery to appreciate 189 stone steles carved with texts from Thirteen Classics of the Confucianism, whose contents have dominated traditional Chinese culture for thousands of years.

► Insider Tips for Lunch:
We will have a lunch break after our visit to the Academy. As we are now again on the Guozijian Street, you are suggested to browse here for local food or snacks. Glutinous Rice Roll with Sweet Bean Flour (Lv Da Gun), Almond Junket (Xing Ren Dou Fu), and Dark Plum Soup (Suan Mei Tang) are all among your choices. If you prefer to have a big lunch, the guide will also be glad to recommend a restaurant for you.

Start your afternoon tour with a visit to Prince Gong’s Mansion. As the biggest princely mansion in the Qing Dynasty, it has a curious story to tell, which involves a corrupt civil official whose name He Shen is known to almost every Chinese thanks to a popular TV series starring him. Actually, the mansion was at first the residence for He Shen and later for two princes. It has kept what it looked to become the best-preserved of its kind in China, so we are lucky to find it still as palatial with delicate architecture. Intriguingly, you will spot the Chinese character “Fu”, meaning “auspicious”, everywhere as we move through the courtyards within. In the cave of its back garden, there is a “Fu” written by Emperor Kangxi (1622-1723) for you to touch for good luck. He Shen also built a two-story treasure house here, which has some forty windows with different shapes for him to tell treasures apart.

Surrounding the Prince Gong’s Mansion are a labyrinth of Hutong alleys lined with traditional Siheyuan courtyard houses. Before sending you back to the hotel, the guide will accompany you to have a stroll there to trace the life of old Beijingers. The area is well known as Shichahai, which stems from the interconnected Shichahai lakes in the center.

As per your request, your guide can also take you to the nearby Shichahai Bar Street, where you can have a cup of drink and some fun. When it’s late, either let your guide escort you back to your hotel or stay here for longer and leave on your own.

► Insider Tips for Dinner:
There are dining options galore around Shichahai and you can randomly pick one to try your luck. But if you are seeking typical Beijing flavors, we recommend the time-honored halal diner Ya’er Li Ji (Houhai Lake branch). Their signature is Baked Sesame-Seed Cake (Shao Bing) sold only for 1 yuan or 0.14 US dollars. You can also wait for freshly-baked Sweet Brown-Sugar Cakes, a traditional Beijing snack, which often come at 19:30. You may queue up to buy the cakes or directly go inside to sit at the table to order other dishes with them. Also try their Stir-fried Chinese Cabbage (Bao Bai Cai). Average cost per person here is CNY 52 / USD 7.2. Later, maybe take a peaceful walk around the lakes.