I promised you (and me) some real sightseeing on the weekend. Here is the first part:

However, before I start raving about the beauty of the Forbidden City and the magnitude of the Tiananmen Square I would like you to imagine the following. Think about a street fair or a beer festival on a Friday or Saturday night! This is how it felt most of the time on Tiananmen Square and in the Forbidden City. Unfortunately, many Chinese tourists seem to make good use of the three-day weekend as well.

Tiananmen Square is simply huge! It is in the center of Beijing and is the largest public square in the world (500m x 880m)…and maybe one of the best surveilled as well. Even though it is supposed to be a public square it feels very much like a government-controlled space including airport level security when going onto the square (with metal detectors and x-ray machines – I am not kidding!), heavy video surveillance and police presence.

The set-up and architecture of for example the Memorial Hall of Chairman Mao, also known as mausoleum of Mao Zedong, as well as the adjacent National Museum of China is not neccessarily beautiful but very impressive. Located to its North, separating it from the Forbidden City, is the Gate of Heavenly Peace from which Chairman Mao proclaimed the People’s Republic of China in 1949.

If Tiananmen Square is huge there is no adjective to describe the dimension of the Forbidden City.

The Forbidden City is the former imperial palace which was the home to twenty-four Chinese emperors (Ming and Qing dynasty) over 491 years between 1420 and 1911. The entire ‘city’ is 961m x 753m and includes more than 9.000 rooms. During its ‘glorious’ times only eunuchs, women and the emperor himself were allowed in the city.

Today, only about one third of the ‘city’ is open to the public. And unfortunately due to the number of visitors on that particular weekend most halls, galleries and museums inside the Forbidden City were closed… But the halls, gardens, sculptures and other precious treasure that we were able to visit was already more than enough – just take a look at the picture gallery.