Photo Reference Resource including images of China
Summer Palace Part 1 - Suzhou Street
The Summer Palace is a vast estate of lakes, gardens and palaces on the outskirts of Beijing. It was the Imperial garden during the Qing Dynasty, it covers approximately 2.9 km square.
The Suzhou Street was built in 1762, as a copy resembling Shantong Street and canal in Suzhou by the Emporer Qianlong. In 1860 the British and French destroyed parts of it which were rebuilt and restored in 1988.
Construction of the Shantang Canal started in 825 AD, during the Tang Dynasty by Bai Juyi, a poet and the Cishi (modern-day equivalent of the prefectural governor) of Suzhou, to provide a link between Huqiu and the city. The sludge dug out from the construction formed a dam along the north bank of the canal known as Baigong Dam in honor of Bai Juyi. A street was built on the dam, which later became the modern-day Shantang Street.
The site it massive and it’s spread allover the estate, I spent a day there and only saw a fraction of the Summer Palace.
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