CN-PEKBLT20 – Forbidden City Half Day Tour (Private)

Your day begins at 8:00 AM with a hotel pickup by your local English-speaking tour guide and private driver.

You’ll step into the awe-inspiring Forbidden City—a vast imperial palace complex covering 961 meters north to south and 753 meters east to west. Enclosed within Beijing’s historic Imperial City, which itself lies within the ancient Inner City, the Forbidden City was designed as the cosmic and political heart of China for over 500 years. Though legend claims it has 9,999 rooms, modern surveys confirm 980 surviving buildings with 8,886 bays of rooms—still an astonishing testament to Ming and Qing engineering.

The entire layout follows Beijing’s sacred central north–south axis—tilted just over two degrees—stretching from the Bell and Drum Towers in the north, through Jingshan Hill, across the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Gate, all the way to Tiananmen Square and Yongdingmen in the south. This axis remains the symbolic spine of the capital.

Traditionally divided into two realms, the Outer Court (southern section) hosted grand ceremonies in halls like the Hall of Supreme Harmony, while the Inner Court (northern section) served as the Emperor’s private residence and center for daily governance. The most significant structures stand proudly along the central axis, reflecting harmony between heaven, earth, and imperial power.

Today, as the Palace Museum, it safeguards one of the world’s greatest cultural collections. Originally based on the Qing imperial holdings, its treasures survived war, evacuation, and division: during the 1930s, over 13,000 crates of artifacts were moved to avoid Japanese invasion. After 1949, many were returned to Beijing, while 2,972 boxes now reside in Taipei’s National Palace Museum. Through decades of recovery, donation, and meticulous inventory work—including major audits from 2004–2010 and 2014–2016—the museum now holds an astonishing 1,862,690 artifacts, with over 1.68 million classified as nationally protected “valuable cultural relics.”

As you walk among ancient courtyards and gilded halls, your guide will bring to life the stories behind the paintings, ceramics, bronze wares, imperial seals, and historical documents that shaped Chinese civilization.

At the conclusion of this profound journey through imperial grandeur and cultural legacy, you’ll be comfortably transferred back to your hotel.