At last it has stopped raining and the sun has come out. Completed in 1420, the Forbidden City, another UNESCO World Heritage Site is the world’s largest palace complex and home to many buildings with 9999 rooms! Now known as the Pace Museum, the Forbidden City was the imperial palace during the Ming and Qing Dynasties where outside visitors were forbidden for five centuries.
I will not repeat here what is very well explained in Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_City
Suffice it to say that the first few courtyards in the outer or southern section are where civil ceremonies took place and the northern sections or back palace is the emperor’s private quarters and garden. The buildings are all constructed in wood and highly decorated in blue, red and gold and are absolutely magnificent so do take a look at Wikipedia. The importance of a building is marked by the number of dragons and mythical beasts that guard the gable ends of the roofs (See photo). The most import buildings are guarded by 10 figures.
Water management and storage was important to this huge complex and many of the walls and buildings are protected by gargoyles thatissue their water into underground storage reservoirs or great iron (Bronze?) vats. Fire has destroyed many of the buildings on at least 3 occasions in former times but in each case the buildings havebeen restored too their former glory.
From the exterior of the buildings are very impressive but inside the artefacts and rooms are not so well preserved and certainly don’t reflect the colourful costumes that we have seen in the Tang Dynasty Show and the Peking Opera. The gardens are pretty but as expected very similar in design to the Yu Garden of Peace that we first visited in Shanghai.
Exiting the Forbidden City was a full body massage affair – see the next blog!
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