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-- Introduction
-- Toolkits
-- Attractions:
-- Layout of Beijing
-- Forbidden City
-- Great Wall
-- Summer Palace
-- Tian'anmen
-- Temple of Heaven
-- Beihai Park
-- Ming Tombs
-- Hutong
-- Yonghe Lamasery (Harmony and Peace Palace Lamasery)
-- Grand View Garden
-- The Sacred Way
Beijing Hotels

In the Xuan Wu District of Beijing on Nan Cai Yuan Street to the southwest of Tian'anmen Square, you can find an idyllic garden that has been created to bring to reality the garden described in a famous novel by the 18th Century writer Cao Xueqin. Known as the Grand View Garden it has been designed using the description given by the novelist in his masterpiece Dream of Red Mansions, known also as Story of the Stone.

Covering an area of 125,000 square meters, this classical garden has twelve distinct scenic spots and a total of forty attractions. The main buildings to be found here are Xiaoxiangguan [Bamboo Lodge], Yihongyuan [Cheerful Red Court] and the Daoxiangcun [Paddy Fragrance Cottage] but there are still more that add to the beauty of the garden.

The novel is considered to be the best to have been written during the Qing Dynasty and is rated as one of the four great classics of Chinese literature. It tells the story of the demise of the prominent aristocratic Jia family against the background of the feudal society in which it had thrived. The main plot concerns the young lovers Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu, who were distant cousins. Their romantic attachment was doomed as a result of the constraints placed upon them by the rules of the feudal society in which they lived. This amorous and sensitive couple are China's Romeo and Juliet.

The success of the novel is derived from the brilliant characterisation of the four hundred or so people who have their being in it. By capturing the grandeur of a lost era the novel still has the power to bring to life the nuances of family life as it affected those who lived during the Qing Dynasty. Family sagas make good television and Dream of Red Mansions had obvious potential. Artists and scholars were engaged to research the novel in order that a large garden complex that would represent the luxurious villa of the Jia family should be as authentic as possible. Construction lasted five years and the typical courtyard complex has no less than forty inner gardens. The scene in each of these is unique with rock and ponds and an abundance of foliage. These provide a tranquil setting for the pavilions, rooms and corridors (traditional covered walkways) in which the drama of the novel could be brought to life. The result has proved to be a popular television series. For the visitor to the Grand View Garden, a stroll along the zigzag paths that wind through it is to experience a world of ancient Chinese dwellings from the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

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