The Forbidden City

Our first stop in Beijing seemed like the only place you could start a trip in this city. Tienamen Square the political center of China for the last 500 years. This famous square houses the Forbidden city which is an unbelievably large complex, 7,800,000 sq ft to be exact. It contains 980 buildings built between 1406 - 1420. For about 500 years it housed the emperors, and family of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. We walked over the bridge to the first palace with a few thousand other people mostly other Chinese tourist learning about their country's history.

The Forbidden City is beautifully constructed old chinese architecture that you could easily spend a few days exploring. With melting ice cream we weaved through the little streets, and life was good. We finally left around closing time to hike up to a look out right outside the palace, where we could see just how smoggy it always is over Beijing. Now we realize why it was hard to walk up a few flights of stairs.