To all the inhabitants in Beijing, there is an excellent place for the outdoor activities in the northwest of this city. Because two big parks are here, they are Beijing Plant Park and the Fragrant Hill Park. Both of them are a good choice for the family to experience the nature and take some exercises. If you are interested in the plants, just go to the Beijing plant park. And if you want to enjoy the most breathtaking scenery in the fall in Beijing, then go to the Fragrant Hill.
As we all known, The Fragrant Hill is featuring as a famous royal park in the history. It sits 20 km away from the city zone and takes around 1.6 million square meters in the northwest mountain area of Beijing. The first construction started from 1186 long time ago in the JIN dynasty, and it opened to the public from 1956. Now the Fragrant Hill is regarded as one of the top 10 parks in Beijing, and honored The World Famous Mountains in Oct 2012.
This Fragrant Hill not only has a rich history but also composes a large forest with lots of green plants, which is named as the Oxygen bar in the west suburb of Beijing. The forest coverage rate reaches to 96% in this area, and the ancient and rare trees recording over 5800 plant. The main color of these areas will turn into lovely red during Oct to Nov annually, and a majority of tourists from worldwide will come around for the beautiful autumn scenery.
The highest peak is “xianglu peak”, which is about 557 meters high. It is very tough to approach to the peak in the past, but now visitors can take the cableway easily to up and down. There are 3 kiosks “chongyang””Tayun””ziyan” on the hill for the visitors to view and rest.
Besides the natural sceneries, there also many historical sites here. The first one is the Xiangshan Temple. This is the first building in its history, starting in 1186. The old building was almost destroyed in the historical invasion war, only left with some stones. However, the carves on those stones have many important scriptures, valuing much in both arts and histories.
On the southeast hill side, there is a very quiet and unique courtyard, named “ shuang qing”. This name comes from the two springs in the courtyard, which go in different directions, and springing all the time. The great leader Mao lived in “shuang qing” in 1949, and then moved to “zhong nan hai” right from here.
Others like Biyun temple, Xiangshan Restaurant and so on, there are countless to list.
Finally, here we have some useful tips for all the visitors. If you have made up your mind to spend a happy holiday here, you should prepare the trip as early as possible. During the golden week of tourism, there may be huge crowds of people in the spot, so it is a wise decision to book your tickets in advance.