Summer's End at the Summer Palace

👍The Summer Palace's landscaping blends Chinese painting, poetry, and literature, creating a grand, colorful royal garden in harmony with its natural surroundings. 📌We entered through the North Palace Gate, directly accessible via Subway Line 4. 🌈The Four Continents: This distinctive architectural complex, covering 20,000 square meters, is a group of Han and Tibetan buildings in the central part of the back hill of Longevity Hill. The Four Continents and Eight Small Continents are arranged around the Xiangyan Zongyin Pavilion on Sumeru, symbolizing the center of the world. Four Tibetan lamaseries, representing the "Four Wisdoms" of Buddhist scriptures, stand in the southeast, southwest, northeast, and northwest of the pavilion, colored red, white, black, and green, respectively. The Four Continents here share the same blueprint as those at Puning Temple, one of the Eight Outer Temples of the Chengde Mountain Resort, making them identical. 🌈Walk east along the Suzhou River to reach the Harmonious Interest Garden, a beautiful replica of the Jichang Garden in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province.