Qing Eastern Tombs

UNESCO World Heritage Site, Imperial Tombs Of The Ming And Qing Dynasties; Burial Complex Of Five Qing Emperors Including Qianlong And Of The Empress Dowager Cixi · Zunhua, Hebei

Spread across eighty square kilometres of hills north-east of Beijing lie five Qing emperors, fifteen empresses and more than a hundred concubines, in the largest and best preserved imperial burial complex in China. Two things make it worth the drive. The first is the underground palace of the Qianlong Emperor, whose stone chambers are carved floor to vaulted ceiling with Buddhist figures and with sutras written in Sanskrit and Tibetan - not decoration applied to a tomb but a scripture cut into the rock, and you walk down into it. The second is what happened in 1928, when the warlord Sun Dianying brought his troops and explosives, blew open Qianlong's tomb and the tomb of the Empress Dowager Cixi, and stripped them. The damage is not hidden. Cixi's own hall nearby carries a carving that says everything about her: the phoenix, the symbol of the empress, placed above the dragon of the emperor.

Malanyu, Zunhua, Tangshan, Zunhua, Hebei, China

Open daily, generally around 8:00-17:30 in summer and 8:30-16:30 in winter, with last entry roughly an hour before closing - arrive early, because the site is eighty square kilometres and the outlying tombs take time to reach. Through-ticket at the main gate covers the principal tombs; THE INTERNAL SHUTTLE IS USUALLY A SEPARATE CHARGE and is close to essential. Underground chambers at Yuling and Dingdongling close earlier than the grounds in winter.

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