2 Best Nature in Beijing

Shichahai is a historic lake district north of the Forbidden City composed of Qianhai, Houhai and Xihai. The waters were linked to Beijing’s canal and grain-transport systems, while princes, officials, temples and ordinary neighborhoods developed along the shores. Stone bridges, willow-lined embankments and dense hutongs create a landscape where open water interrupts the close grain of the old city. Former princely mansions, courtyard residences, the Drum and Bell Tower area and long-established community institutions give the district exceptional historical depth. Bars and restaurants have transformed parts of Houhai, but quieter shores still reveal the relationship between waterways and residential Beijing. Shichahai’s importance lies in this coexistence of canal heritage, elite architecture and living hutong neighborhoods. The linked lakes remain one of the clearest places to see water shaping the plan and social life of old Beijing.

Fragrant Hills Park covers wooded hills at the eastern edge of Beijing’s Western Mountains and has served as an imperial retreat, temple landscape and public scenic area. Paths climb through forest toward viewpoints, pagodas and former court sites, while seasonal vegetation gives the terrain a strong visual rhythm. The park is most famous for autumn foliage, when smoke trees and maples cover the slopes in red, but pines, rocky ridges and distant views define the landscape throughout the year. Religious and imperial remains are distributed across the hills, including temple sites, memorial architecture and traces of the former Garden of Tranquility and Pleasure. Repeated destruction and reconstruction left a landscape where ruins, newer buildings and natural growth coexist. The result is not a single preserved palace garden but a broad historical mountain environment reflecting centuries of retreat, worship and the capital’s expansion toward the western hills.