On day 2, we spent a very short time at the Summer Palace Gardens, only seeing the actual series of palaces off in the distance. The gardens are almost 3 square kilometres in size, most of which is water and we would have loved to walk around a lot more than we did.
This pic shows the Wenchang Tower, the largest of 6 gate forts built in the gardens. It dates back to 1750. The origins of the garden palaces themselves date back to the Jin Dynasty in 1153.
This is our group, Bus #4, gathered together to hear a bit of the history behind the gardens. Turns out I'm a lot more interested in biology and geography than history .... lol. My only beef with our 2 week tour - the big focus on ancient history to the exclusion of the present day.
