8 ideal things to do in Beijing

The short list, pulled out of the long essay. No opening hours, because they change and I would only get them wrong — just what is worth your morning, roughly when to turn up, and where I have wasted time so you don’t have to.

By Ščenza

Last checked April 12, 2025

The Forbidden City, walked south to north
Dongcheng, on the central axisFirst entry slot of the day; closed Mondays outside public holidays
Tickets are online-only, sold in advance, and tied to your passport number — a rule I discovered while standing at the Meridian Gate with no ticket and a great deal of misplaced confidence. Book several days out and take the earliest slot. Three hours gets you the central axis halls and none of the side courtyards, which is the correct trade to make; the side courtyards are where the tour flags go to breed. Come out at the north gate rather than doubling back.
Wanchun Pavilion, Jingshan Park
Directly opposite the Forbidden City's north gateLate afternoon, straight after the palace
Jingshan is a spoil heap. Ming builders piled it out of the earth dug from the palace moat, and it is still the highest point on Beijing's central axis, which tells you everything about the flatness of this plain. Five minutes of steps gets you to the Wanchun Pavilion and the entire golden roofscape of the Forbidden City laid out below, plus the white pagoda in Beihai and the Drum and Bell Towers stacked away to the north. I have climbed it four times and photographed the same view four times.
The park at the Temple of Heaven, before the halls
Southern DongchengEarly morning, any day of the week
Buy the through-ticket, go early, and then ignore the monuments for an hour. The park around them is where retired Beijing conducts its morning: tai chi under the cypresses, ballroom dancing on the covered walkway, a man singing opera at a tree with total commitment, four separate card games running. I was beaten at a game involving a shuttlecock and the side of the foot by a woman of roughly seventy, in front of an audience. Then go in and look at the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests — triple roof, triple marble terrace, no nails anywhere in it.
The Great Wall at Jinshanling
About 130 km north-east of the cityWeekday, spring or autumn; take the earliest bus out
Badaling is the section you have seen in photographs with six thousand people standing on it. Jinshanling is a hundred and thirty kilometres out and roughly half of it is unrestored — collapsed towers, loose brick, grass coming through the paving — which is precisely the reason to go. Four to six hours end to end at an honest pace. Do not build the day around continuing to Simatai; that connecting stretch runs through a buffer zone, opens and closes without much notice, and I have twice walked a long way to a padlock.
Yonghegong, the Lama Temple
North-east Dongcheng, on metro lines 2 and 5Book a morning slot about a week ahead; slots sell out
Yonghegong now runs on timed entry booked days in advance, and the morning slots go first. Worth the admin: this is a working Tibetan Buddhist monastery rather than a monument, and a good half of the people in the queue are there to pray. Incense is handed out at the gate and the courtyards are thick with it. The last hall holds an eighteen-metre standing Maitreya that cannot be photographed properly from any position in the building, a fact I established over twenty minutes of increasingly undignified crouching.
The Long Corridor at the Summer Palace
North-west Beijing, roughly an hour from the centreA clear weekday; skip weekends entirely
Seven hundred and twenty-eight metres of covered walkway along the foot of Longevity Hill, every beam painted with a different scene — over fourteen thousand of them, none repeated. I set out to find a duplicate, gave up somewhere past the middle, and spent the rest of the walk looking at Kunming Lake instead, which fills three-quarters of the park. On a Sunday the corridor moves at the pace of the slowest pram in it, and there is no overtaking lane.
The Drum Tower performance, then the alleys behind it
Gulou, the northern end of the central axisAny daytime performance; the hutongs at first light
Drummers in costume come out on the second floor several times a day and hit a wall of replica drums hard enough that you feel it in your ribs; the whole tower was restored and reopened in 2019, interactive displays and all. Do that, then leave by the north side and walk the alleys — Mao'er, Beiluoguxiang, the small unnamed ones. Grey brick, a cat on every wall, somebody's washing across the lane. At seven in the morning it has the exact texture of our Veli Varoš, only flatter, and with considerably better breakfast.
Panjiayuan Antique Market
Chaoyang, south-east of the third ring roadSaturday or Sunday, as early as you can face
Outdoor stalls only really run at weekends and the serious trading happens well before it is properly light. Jade, Cultural Revolution posters, Buddha heads, Mao badges sold by weight, and an unreasonable quantity of furniture. Almost none of it is old, nobody involved pretends otherwise, and that makes the haggling oddly restful — you are negotiating over a nice object, not an heirloom. I overpaid for a snuff bottle, it sits on my desk, and I know exactly what it is.

The long version

Beijing: the imperial city behind the smog and the headlines

Beijing is a city of axes — the great north-south central axis from the Bell Tower through the Forbidden City to the Temple of Heaven — and of pockets. The pockets are the hutongs, the grey-brick alley neighbourhoods, and they remain, in the surviving sections, one of the most distinctive urban textures on earth.

Read the full essay →