Chengde Mountain Resort

The Mountain Resort at Chengde was the Qing court's summer estate, and it is enormous: a walled park of about five and a half square kilometres holding a lake district of islands and causeways laid out in the southern manner, a stretch of open grassland once used for riding, wooded hills scattered with pavilions, and a low palace built of unpainted cedar rather than the usual red and gold. Outside the walls stands a ring of temples in Tibetan and Mongolian architectural styles, the largest modelled on the Potala with a stepped red facade, and another holding a very tall carved wooden Guanyin. The mixture of building traditions in one place is the point of it.

What you actually see

• The lake district - islands, causeways and pavilions laid out in southern garden style.
• The cedar palace - unpainted timber halls, plain by imperial standards, with original furnishings.
• Putuo Zongcheng Temple - the largest outlying temple, a stepped red and white complex on the hillside.
• Puning Temple - home to a very tall carved wooden statue of a thousand-armed Guanyin.

When to go

May to October. The estate was built to escape Beijing's summer heat and still works that way, though August brings rain. Autumn colour on the wooded slopes is the best time of all. The park is far too big to walk in full, so use the shuttle carts or hire a bike, and give the outlying temples a separate half day.

Honest expectations

Distances inside are punishing on foot and the shuttle is an extra charge on an already expensive ticket. Many halls are empty or roped off, and the outlying temples each charge separately, which adds up quickly. Chengde itself is a plain provincial town. On summer weekends the Beijing day-trip traffic fills both the park and the temple car parks.

Nearby

The grasslands north of Chengde and a wild, unrestored stretch of the Great Wall lie within a couple of hours.