good morning ladies and gentlemen:
my name is joanne.i’m very honored to be youre guide.i do hope all of you could like my guiding and enjoy everything on your pleasant day.this morning we are going to visit the summer palace.
the summer palace is located on the northwest suburbs of beijing,about 20 kilometers away from the center of the city.so it will take us about 1 hour to get there.before we arrived at the summer palace,i would like to introduce you a brief introduction of the woderful imperial garden.the summer palace is the most beautiful and the largest imperial garden existing in chinan,and it is the best-preserved imperial garden in the world.in 1998,it was placed on the list of world cultural heritage by the unesco.
the summer palace was first built as an imperial garden at the beginning of 12th century in the jin dynasty.the construction continued to the yuan and ming dynasties.in the qing dynasty,the building of imperial gardens reached its culmination.during emperor qianlong’s reign,the famous ‘three hills and five gardens’ were built on the northwest suburbs of beijing.the summer palace was a part of it and at that time was called the garden of clear ripples.in 1860,the anglo-french allied forces invaded beijing.the ‘three hills and five gardens’ were burnt down to ashes.
in 1888,the empress dowager cixi spent the navy fund having the garden of clear ripples rebuilt.and then she renamed it the garden of nurtured harmony (summer palace).
in 1900,the allied forces of eight powers invaded beijing.the summer palace was once again severely damaged.it was rebuilt again in 1902.
in 1924,the last emperor puyi was driven out of the palace,after that,the summer palace was turned into a public park.
ladies and gentlemen,please look over there,in front of us is an archway.it is called “emptiness and the collection of excelle nce”,and it is the first scenery of the summer palace.the two chinese words on the front side of the archway mean emptiness and refer to everything in nature and in the scenery.the two words on the back side mean collection of excellence and refer to the tranquility of the beautiful scenery just within the garden.
(outside the east palace gate)
now,we have arrived at the east palace gate.it’s the main entrance of the summer palace.on top of the gate there is a plaque with three chinese characters ‘the summer palace’ in emperor guangxu’s handwriting.the gate that we are now entering was used by the emperor,the empress only in the old days.
(inside the east palace gate)
now we are inside the summer palace.in front of us is the second gate of the summer palace— the gate of benevolence and longevity.the annex halls on both sides were used for officials on duty and the offices of the privy council.well,before we start our tour in the garden,i will briefly introduce you the layout of the summer palace and our tour route.o.k.,ladies and gentlemen,may i have your attention please?let’s look at the map together,from it we can see the summer palace covers an area of 290 hectares,which the lake occupies the three-fourths.the whole garden can be divide into three parts:the area was for political activities,resting places of the emperor and empress,and sightseeing areas.our tour will start from the area of the political activities,and end off the marble boat.on the way,we will visit the main constructions of the summer palace,such as the hall of jade ripples,the hall of happiness and longevity,the long corridor,the hall of dispelling clouds and so on.it will take us about two hours to visit the summer palace.please attention,we won’t walk back and our driver will pick us up at the north gate.should you get lost or separated from the group,please meet us at the north gate.
