Beijing beyond the Forbidden City, the Wall and the Temple of Heaven: what to do with days four and five

The three-day Beijing plan covers the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, the Temple of Heaven and the Summer Palace, and a first visit needs all of them. A fourth and fifth day, or a second trip, is where Beijing becomes a city rather than a list: art in old factories, temples that still smell of incense, lakes you cycle around, markets at dawn and hills that turn red in November. This is what we add when guests have the time.

798 Art District

A former East German-built electronics factory complex in the north-east, now the largest contemporary art district in China: galleries large and small, the UCCA Center, sculpture in the yards, Mao-era slogans still on the brick, cafés, bookshops and design stores. Free to wander, with ticketed exhibitions in the big spaces. A half day for art people, two hours for everyone else; weekday afternoons are quiet, weekends are a scene. Combine with the Olympic park nearby.

The Lama Temple and the Confucius Temple

Yonghegong, the Lama Temple, is the most important Tibetan Buddhist temple outside Tibet and a working one: incense in clouds, pilgrims prostrating, and in the last hall a 26-metre Buddha carved from a single sandalwood trunk. Ninety minutes, with a passport booking, best at opening. Across the lane, the Confucius Temple and the Imperial College, the old examination halls under ancient cypresses, are calm and nearly empty, and the courtyard of stone tablets listing every scholar who passed the imperial exams for 600 years is one of the city’s quiet marvels. The hutongs between them (Guozijian Street, Wudaoying) have the best small cafés and shops in the north of the city.

The lakes by bicycle

Hire bikes (shared bikes need a Chinese app; hotels and guides arrange proper ones) and ride the loop of Houhai, Qianhai and Xihai, then north to the Drum and Bell Towers and west into Beihai Park, the imperial lake garden with the white dagoba on the island and the Nine Dragon Screen. Flat, mostly car-free, two to three hours with stops, and the best way to see the hutongs that a walk cannot cover. In winter the lakes freeze and the city skates on them.

The Summer Palace at dawn

The three-day plan visits the Summer Palace mid-morning. Going at opening (6.30 or 7 am) is a different place: the Long Corridor empty, retirees singing on the lakeshore, mist on Kunming Lake, and two hours before the first coach. Breakfast in the park, boat across, out by ten. Worth repeating even if you went on day three.

The Fragrant Hills in autumn

Xiangshan, the hills on the city’s western edge, turn red with smoke-tree leaves from late October to mid-November and all Beijing goes to see them; on a weekday the climb or the chairlift to the summit, the Biyun Temple with its 500 arhats, and the view back over the haze to the city are worth the hour’s drive. The Botanical Garden below has the Sleeping Buddha Temple. Outside autumn it is a pleasant hill; in autumn, a pilgrimage.

The Ming Tombs

The valley north of the city where thirteen Ming emperors are buried, approached by the Sacred Way of stone animals and officials. Changling, the grandest, is a walk through halls of nanmu wood; Dingling is the one excavated tomb, with the underground palace. The tombs are on the road to Badaling, so coach tours bundle them with the crowded Wall; with a car they pair with the quieter Juyongguan section instead, or stand alone as a half day.

The quieter Wall

A second Wall day is the thing most returning visitors ask for. Jinshanling, two and a half hours north-east, is a half-day hike along partly restored towers with long views and few people; Gubei Water Town below the Simatai section is a rebuilt canal town where the Wall is lit at night and can be climbed after dark, a kitsch idea that is genuinely magical; Huanghuacheng has the Wall running into a reservoir. All need a car and a guide; the Beijing itinerary compares the sections.

Markets and streets

• Panjiayuan, the antique and curio market in the south-east, at dawn on Saturday or Sunday: porcelain, furniture, Mao memorabilia, jade, carpets, most of it reproduction and some of it not; bargain hard and buy for pleasure, as the shopping guide advises.
• Qianmen and Dashilar, the restored shopping streets south of Tiananmen, for the century-old shops (the pickle shop, the shoe shop, the pharmacy) and the hutongs behind them.
• Liulichang for calligraphy brushes, paper, seals and the seal carvers.
• Wangfujing’s department stores and the Beijing Books Building for the city at its most ordinary.
• Sanlitun for the embassy district’s restaurants, bars and the Taikoo Li mall, and the best Western food in the city for a night off.

Museums

The National Museum on Tiananmen Square (free, booking, closed Mondays) for the ancient China galleries; the Capital Museum for Beijing’s own history and a jade collection; the Military Museum for Chinese boys of all ages; and the Beijing Zoo’s pandas, which are a cheap and easy substitute for the Chengdu trip the far destinations guide describes.

The Olympic park at night

The Bird’s Nest stadium and the Water Cube are lit after dark and the plaza between them is a Beijing evening out, with families, kites and ice cream; the Water Cube is now a public pool and water park by day. Twenty minutes by metro from the centre, combined with 798 in the afternoon.

Two extra days

Autumn swaps 798 for the Fragrant Hills; walkers swap day five for Jinshanling; a second visit swaps everything for Gubei and a night under the lit Wall.

Where this fits

On the Shanghai to Beijing tour these days are the extension we quote most, with the same guide and car. For returning visitors we build a Beijing-only week around them, with a courtyard hotel from the where to stay guide and the morning parks from the parks guide. Tell us what you saw last time on the contact page and we fill in the rest.