How Do You Tour Beijings Forbidden City?
If you’ve ever seen the film “The Last Emperor,” you’re already somewhat familiar with the Forbidden City. This is the vast palace complex, or as many people say, a “city-within-a-city,” that from the fifteenth to the early-twentieth centuries was home to the Emperor of China and his vast, fawning court. The city includes 980 buildings, 70 halls and palaces and 9,999 rooms. Buy your tickets at the Meridian Gate, which is just north of Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, site of the 1989 anti-government protests. The Forbidden City is open April through October from 8:30am to 5pm, with the last ticket sold at 4pm and the gate closed at 4:10pm, and November through March from 8:30am to 4:30pm, with the last ticket sold at 3:30pm and gate closed at 4:40pm. The Forbidden City is laid out on a north-south axis, with a series of ceremonial ramps. The central corridor is fairly straightforward in design, but the eastern and western sections can get complicated. The complex is surrounded by a moat, th
