Forbidden City, Great Wall + slide, 798, Hutongs, Hanging Temple + Yungang Grottoes via Datong (overnight), Tianjin Binhai Library day trip, Tianzi Hotel photo stop.
Imperial palace complex in central Beijing. Residence and political center of Chinese emperors from 1420 to 1924.
Forbidden City. Mandatory in Beijing.
Exhibition venue established 1954, built in Sino-Soviet architectural style during the era of Sino-Soviet cooperation.
Stalinist wedding-cake gifted by USSR in 1954. Star-tipped spire, hammer & sickle reliefs. Easy Beijing add.
Former Qing imperial garden complex of 3.5 km² ~8 km north-west of Beijing's old Imperial City. Largely destroyed in 1860 by Anglo-French forces during the Second Opium War; preserved as a public ruin park.
Sacked & burned 1860 by Anglo-French troops; deliberately preserved as a ruin/national-shame site. Eerie and political.
Art and history museum on the eastern side of Tiananmen Square. Established in current form in 2003 by merger of the Museum of the Chinese Revolution and the National Museum of Chinese History (which had shared the building since 1959).
World's largest museum by floor area. The colossal 1959 socialist-realist slab on the east side of Tiananmen. Free, takes a passport. Opposite Mao's mausoleum. Skip the contents — the BUILDING is the visit.
STATE-RUN NORTH KOREAN restaurant. Staffed entirely by NK government 'cultural workers' on rotation — they sing, dance, play accordion, and bring you cold noodles. Hard currency goes to the Kim regime. The most surreal communist meal you can have without crossing a border. Branches in Beijing & Shanghai. (Some closed under sanctions; verify before going — but the Beijing one was operating recently.)
All-penis restaurant. Beijing branch is the original. Memorable for the wrong reasons.
Vegetarian fine-dining restaurant in a traditional courtyard at Wudaoying Hutong, opposite the Lama Temple (Yonghe Temple), Beijing. Three Michelin stars and a Michelin Green Star.
3 Michelin vegetarian, Beijing. Worth it if you skip Ultraviolet.
Taizhou (Zhejiang) seafood and East China Sea fish at the Beijing flagship inside Genesis Beijing's East Tower (Chaoyang). Three Michelin stars in the Beijing guide.
Top-tier Taizhou seafood; Beijing branch is excellent.
Contemporary Chinese tasting-menu restaurant by chef Jason Liu. Beijing original (in the Bei Zhaolong Hotel / Stey co-living space) earned one Michelin star in the 2022 Beijing Guide; a Shanghai sister venue followed.
Modern Chinese tasting, Beijing. 1 Michelin.
Beijing colored dumplings — solid, cheap, iconic.
Contemporary French by Ignace Lecleir in a ~600-year-old historic temple courtyard at 23 Shatan North Street, Dongcheng, near the Forbidden City. One Michelin star.
TRB — restored Qing temple compound dining, Beijing. Atmosphere is peak.
Former state-owned military electronics factory complex with Bauhaus-influenced architecture (built 1954–57) in Beijing's Chaoyang District. Transformed since the late 1990s into one of China's most prominent contemporary art communities.
Beijing Bauhaus factory turned art zone. Easy add.
Historic Beijing roast (Peking) duck restaurant chain founded in 1864 by Yang Renquan during the Tongzhi reign of the Qing dynasty. Original / flagship branch on Qianmen Street.
Original Beijing roast duck. Touristy but the OG.
BEIJING. Conceptual, secret-location-ish tasting menu — the closest thing left to the Ultraviolet ethos in China. Worth swapping in if you're doing a fancy tasting in Beijing instead of Shanghai.
Mao-era nuclear bunker network beneath central Beijing. Mostly closed to public but parts pop up; even seeing the entries is worth it.
Titanium dome dropped onto the Mao Mausoleum's doorstep. Walk over from Tiananmen.
Zaha Hadid's flowing white pods — ideal contrast to the Soviet stuff.
OMA's gravity-defying loop. Polarizing icon of post-2008 Beijing.
Centerpiece venues of the 2008 Olympics. Bird's Nest by Herzog & de Meuron (completed 2008); Water Cube by PTW + Arup + CSCEC + CCDI (2007). Water Cube hosted curling at the 2022 Winter Olympics.
Herzog & de Meuron + PTW. Even if you've seen them in photos a thousand times, in person they're propaganda-monumental. Visit at dusk for the floodlights. 30 min from central Beijing.
266.5 m stone arch bridge completed 1192, praised by Marco Polo. The 1937 Marco Polo Bridge Incident here marked the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Adjacent 17th-c. Wanping Fortress houses the Museum of the War of Chinese People's Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.
Where the Sino-Japanese War kicked off in 1937. Memorial museum is heavy socialist-realist. The walled Wanping town beside it was preserved 1980s as a 'patriotic education base.' Easy half-day from Beijing.
Forgotten Beijing watchtower. Easy add.
Mongolian-themed restaurant in Chaoyang District, Beijing, with 50+ individual yurt-style private dining tents. Specialty: spit-roast lamb plus Mongolian and northern Chinese dishes.
Beijing hotpot.
Mao-era themed restaurant in a restored 200-year-old courtyard in Dongsi Jiutiao hutong, Beijing. Serves Zhongnanhai Cuisine inspired by dishes favored by Mao, Deng, and other PRC leaders.
Mao-era kitsch dining; touristy but novel.
Beijing local.
Beijing; the name alone.
Traditional Beijing zhajiangmian (fried-sauce noodle) house with branches including Chongwenmen. Theatrical service: servers shout greetings as guests arrive and applaud as they leave.
Theatrical noodle service, Beijing.
Beijing local.
Beijing craft brewery founded 2011 by Chandler Jurinka and Daniel Hebert. Sanlitun Brewpub at 6 Nan Sanlitun Lu has 36 taps over three floors. Known for Monkey's Fist IPA.
Beijing craft beer brewery.
Pedestrian snack alley off Wangfujing Street in Dongcheng, Beijing. Chinese street snacks and skewers. Busiest in evenings.
Scorpion-on-a-stick tourist market. Mostly closed/tamed now but still a stop.
Specialty museum in Pangezhuang Town, Daxing District, Beijing, dedicated to the history and agriculture of watermelons. Building shaped like a giant watermelon flanked by green leaves.
Beijing Daxing. Yes it's real.
Theme park in southwestern Beijing (Fengtai District) with ~100 scaled-down replicas of famous landmarks from nearly 40 countries.
Mini Eiffel etc. Bizarre and accessible.
Beijing dinosaur museum.
North Korean state-run gallery in Beijing's 798 Art Zone, opened 2009 as the first overseas outpost of Pyongyang's Mansudae Art Studio (producer of major DPRK monuments such as the Chollima Statue). Sells socialist-realist paintings, bronze, posters, stamps. Scaled-down Chollima replica at the entrance.
North Korean art in Beijing. Niche.
Final resting place of Mao Zedong on Tiananmen Square. Mausoleum completed 24 May 1977.
Mao mausoleum, Tiananmen. Polarizing experience.
High-end Sichuan chain, Beijing.
Massive bronze cylinder slammed through a stone slab. Underrated, in central Beijing.
1950s Soviet-style Workers' arena. Rebuilt recently but the gymnasium retains the original look.
Pyongyang-vibes broadcast tower. Revolving restaurant inside.
Three Zaha Hadid towers, mountain-shaped, 798 area.
Urban village and contemporary arts district in Beijing's Chaoyang District near the 5th Ring Road / Airport Expressway. Artists and galleries (incl. studios designed by Ai Weiwei) began moving in around 2000; quieter counterpart to nearby 798.
Ai Weiwei's gray-brick studio district. Quieter than 798, more brutalist.
Re-flagging — Ai Weiwei's gray-brick studio district, quieter and more brutalist than 798.
Beijing nightlife; if interested.
Mutianyu toboggan down. Pair with the Great Wall visit.
Shou-Xing-Fu hotel shaped like 3 gods. Hebei, near Beijing — easy detour.
Five-level public library nicknamed 'The Eye' for its central spherical auditorium ringed by terraced bookshelves. Designed by MVRDV (Rotterdam) with the Tianjin Urban Planning and Design Institute. Opened October 2017.
The 'Eye' library. Spectacular and easy from Beijing (~1h HSR).
Built into a cliff 75 m above the ground near Mount Heng in Hunyuan County, Shanxi. 40 halls integrating Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucian elements; over 1,500 years old.
Pinned to a cliff for 1500 years. Datong — 4h from Pingyao or Beijing. Pair with Yungang.
500-year-old folk art performed in Nuanquan Town, Yuxian County, Hebei. Molten iron is thrown against a cold brick wall to create showers of sparks resembling a tree canopy. Traditionally during the Lantern Festival.
Molten iron firework show, Hebei. Specific dates.
Italianate quarter — only one outside Italy. Atmospherically rotting.
Upscale residential and tourist quarter in Tianjin's Heping District. 230+ buildings in British, French, Italian, German, and Spanish styles. From the former British concession; the Italian Concession (1901-1943) is a separate quarter.
European-style concessions, half decayed, half gentrified. Pair with Binhai Library.
Northern Wei dynasty Buddhist rock-cut temples ~16 km west of Datong, Shanxi. 53 major caves with ~51,000 statues. UNESCO World Heritage.
Datong cave Buddhas. UNESCO. Pair with Hanging Temple.
Reconstruction of Datong's historic core launched 2008 by Mayor Geng Yanbo ('Demolition Mayor'), redeveloping over 3 km² and demolishing roughly 200,000 homes. Ming-style city wall rebuilt 2010–end of 2014. Geng left office 2013, leaving a half-finished city center; subject of the documentary 'The Chinese Mayor'.
Mayor Geng Yanbo demolished entire historic neighborhoods 2008-2013 to rebuild a 'Tang dynasty' fake-old city from scratch — bankrupting the city in the process. Empty new-ancient streets inside vast walls. You're already going to Datong for Yungang + Hanging Temple. THIS is the bonus. Watch 'The Chinese Mayor' (2015) before going.
Real working/decaying Mao-era mining city. You're already going to Datong for Hanging Temple/Yungang.
Easternmost terminus of the Ming Great Wall, where a granite seawall extends into the Bohai Sea south of Shanhaiguan Pass, Hebei. First built 1381; named for resembling a dragon's head dipping into the sea. Part of the Great Wall UNESCO listing.
Shanhaiguan, where wall meets the sea. Doable from Beijing.
Highway arch south of Erenhot, built 2006, with two sauropod sculptures depicted as kissing across the road. Smaller dinosaur figures of various species added 2007.
Erenhot border arch. Same area.
Dinosaur-themed museum and geopark in Erenhot, Inner Mongolia, near a region (Iren Dabasu / Iren Nor salt lake) historically significant for major dinosaur fossil discoveries.
Erenhot. Inner Mongolia far north.
Manzhouli, Inner Mongolia border. Way off-route.
