Top 10 Things to Do in Beijing

The best-preserved section of the Great Wall — a 90-minute drive from central Beijing — offers gondola access, toboggan descent, and kilometres of restored wall snaking over forested ridges with fewer crowds than the famous Badaling section.

The circular Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests — rising triple-tiered above a marble altar platform where emperors once performed sacred harvest rituals — is one of the most geometrically perfect structures ever built and a masterpiece of Ming architecture.

The narrow grey-brick alleyways around the Drum Tower and Shichahai lakes preserve the spatial logic of old Beijing — courtyard houses, bicycle repair shops, dumpling stalls, and elderly residents playing chess under plane trees — a world apart from the boulevards.

The centuries-old dish of lacquered duck carved tableside and wrapped in thin pancakes with hoisin and spring onion is Beijing's greatest culinary contribution — best experienced at Quanjude or Da Dong, both of which have perfected the ritual over generations.

The vast imperial garden complex on the shores of Kunming Lake — with its marble boat, Long Corridor painted with 14,000 scenes, and Longevity Hill crowned by an octagonal tower — was the Empress Dowager Cixi's preferred residence over the Forbidden City.

The world's largest public square — flanked by the Great Hall of the People, the National Museum, and Mao's Mausoleum — carries the full weight of modern Chinese history and sees its most moving moment at dawn during the daily flag-raising ceremony.

Converted from a 1950s Soviet-era electronics factory complex, this sprawling arts district in Dashanzi hosts hundreds of galleries, studios, and design shops in brutalist Bauhaus buildings — Beijing's most compelling argument for its contemporary creative vitality.

The oldest imperial garden in Beijing — a 1,000-year-old pleasure ground of pavilions, willows, and lotus ponds centred on an island topped by a white Tibetan stupa — is where Kublai Khan built his personal paradise and Mao swam laps well into old age.

The largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery outside Tibet is a working place of worship with active monks, butter-lamp shrines, and the world's largest carved Maitreya Buddha statue — 26 metres of sandalwood reaching through three floors of a single pavilion.

The best-preserved section of the Great Wall — a 90-minute drive from central Beijing — offers gondola access, toboggan descent, and kilometres of restored wall snaking over forested ridges with fewer crowds than the famous Badaling section.

The circular Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests — rising triple-tiered above a marble altar platform where emperors once performed sacred harvest rituals — is one of the most geometrically perfect structures ever built and a masterpiece of Ming architecture.

The narrow grey-brick alleyways around the Drum Tower and Shichahai lakes preserve the spatial logic of old Beijing — courtyard houses, bicycle repair shops, dumpling stalls, and elderly residents playing chess under plane trees — a world apart from the boulevards.

The centuries-old dish of lacquered duck carved tableside and wrapped in thin pancakes with hoisin and spring onion is Beijing's greatest culinary contribution — best experienced at Quanjude or Da Dong, both of which have perfected the ritual over generations.

The vast imperial garden complex on the shores of Kunming Lake — with its marble boat, Long Corridor painted with 14,000 scenes, and Longevity Hill crowned by an octagonal tower — was the Empress Dowager Cixi's preferred residence over the Forbidden City.

The world's largest public square — flanked by the Great Hall of the People, the National Museum, and Mao's Mausoleum — carries the full weight of modern Chinese history and sees its most moving moment at dawn during the daily flag-raising ceremony.

Converted from a 1950s Soviet-era electronics factory complex, this sprawling arts district in Dashanzi hosts hundreds of galleries, studios, and design shops in brutalist Bauhaus buildings — Beijing's most compelling argument for its contemporary creative vitality.

The oldest imperial garden in Beijing — a 1,000-year-old pleasure ground of pavilions, willows, and lotus ponds centred on an island topped by a white Tibetan stupa — is where Kublai Khan built his personal paradise and Mao swam laps well into old age.

The largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery outside Tibet is a working place of worship with active monks, butter-lamp shrines, and the world's largest carved Maitreya Buddha statue — 26 metres of sandalwood reaching through three floors of a single pavilion.