Beijing
The Forbidden City at the centre, imperial gardens to the north-west, courtyard houses turned into hotels, two three-star tables, and an airport at either end of the city.
- Arrival
- Beijing Capital International · PEK
- To the city
- About 20 minutes by the Airport Express
- Private jets
- Runways of 3,800 m at Capital and Daxing
- Best time
- April to June · September to October
The city
Walls, halls and lakes.
The Forbidden City was raised between 1406 and 1420 and housed twenty-four emperors, Ming and Qing, behind a wall 7.9 metres high and a moat 52 metres wide. South of it, the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests at the Temple of Heaven stands 38 metres tall in wood, without a single nail. To the north-west, Kunming Lake fills three-quarters of the Summer Palace.
Spring and autumn are short and mild: April to June and September to October, with highs from 19 to 30 °C. July and August bring most of the year’s rain, and in January the average high is just 2 °C.
Arriving
North-east and south.
Capital International lies 32 km north-east of the centre, in Shunyi, and the Airport Express runs in 16 to 20 minutes. Daxing, opened in 2019 to a design by Zaha Hadid Architects, lies 46 km to the south under a single terminal roof of 700,000 m².
- Seoul 1 h 30
- Shanghai 1 h 45
- Kuala Lumpur 6 h 00
- Frankfurt 10 h 20 long-range jet
- Los Angeles 13 h 15 long-range jet
When to go
April to June, and September to October.
Continental, with four sharp seasons. Winters are cold and almost dry; the summer monsoon brings more than 140 mm in each of July and August. April to June and September to October sit between the two.
- 2° J 2
- 4° F 4
- 11° M 7
- 20° A 18
- 27° M 29
- 30° J 65
- 31° J 152
- 30° A 143
- 26° S 42
- 19° O 18
- 10° N 7
- 3° D 2
What to see and do
Days in and around Beijing.
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Landmark
The Forbidden City
Nine hundred and eighty buildings on 72 hectares, a museum since 1925.
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Landmark
Temple of Heaven
First built in 1420 under the Yongle Emperor, a round hall where the emperors prayed for good harvests, on the UNESCO list since 1998.
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Landmark
Summer Palace
A lake, a hill of sixty metres and a covered corridor some 728 metres long, with a marble boat moored at the shore.
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Opera & music
National Centre for the Performing Arts
Paul Andreu's titanium and glass dome beside Tiananmen Square opened in 2007, with a 2,207 seat opera hall reached through a passage under its lake.
Official site -
Opera & music
Huguang Guild Hall
Mei Lanfang once sang at this guild hall of 1807, whose 1830 theatre still holds regular Peking opera performances.
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Culture
Yonghe Temple
Begun in 1694 as a prince's residence and made a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in 1744, the Lama Temple holds an 18 metre Maitreya carved from one piece of sandalwood.
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Culture
798 Art Zone
Galleries and the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art fill the sawtooth halls of Joint Factory 718, a Bauhaus influenced complex of the 1950s in Chaoyang.
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Nature
Mutianyu Great Wall
Visitors take a cable car up to this stretch of 23 watchtowers, walk between them and can ride a wheeled toboggan back down.
On the calendar
A date to plan around.
Dates as published by the organisers. Runways, hotels and slots fill early around these weeks: the sooner we know, the more choice you have.
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10–19 Sep 2027
Athletics
World Athletics Championships
World Athletics' outdoor championships, returning to the National Stadium in Beijing, which hosted the 2008 Olympics and 2015 championships.
Beijing National Stadium
In 10 months
Where to stay
Hutongs, a palace garden and the western hills.
Shown for information. We have no arrangement with any of these hotels.
- Mandarin Oriental Qianmen Forty-two rooms in courtyard houses among the lanes of Qianmen, with a tea house and three MICHELIN Keys.
- Bvlgari Hotel Beijing In the green embassy quarter, with Niko Romito’s starred Italian dining room and a mosaic pool below ground.
- Rosewood Beijing A piece of cloisonné in each of its 283 rooms, among the business towers of Chaoyang.
- The Peninsula Beijing On Goldfish Lane, a short walk from Tiananmen, with Cantonese cooking at Huang Ting.
- Mandarin Oriental Wangfujing Seventy-three rooms on the great shopping street, with a spa, a sauna and an indoor pool.
- Hotel Éclat Beijing An art hotel at 9 Dongdaqiao Road with one MICHELIN Key and a Lagoon Suite among its rooms.
- China World Summit Wing, Beijing Reception is on level 64 of the China World Tower, and the spa has an infinity pool.
- Grand Hyatt Beijing Inside Oriental Plaza within walking distance of Tiananmen, where Made in China cooks Beijing classics.
- Regent Beijing Nearly five hundred rooms, the highest of them looking towards the Forbidden City.
- Shangri-La Beijing Six hundred and seventy rooms in the Garden and Valley wings, around a garden of more than 3,000 square metres.
- Kempinski Hotel Beijing Yansha Center Four hundred and eighty rooms beside the Liangma River, with a rooftop pool and a Paulaner Bräuhaus.
- China World Hotel, Beijing Joined to the China World Mall and the Guomao metro, with Peking duck at its Summer Palace restaurant.
- Xitan Hotel Beijing Thirty-eight rooms around courtyards in the hills west of the city, with a spa given over to hydrotherapy.
- Beijing Yihe Hotel Fifty-one rooms in century-old guest houses by the palace gate, with the pools and a squash court underground.
- The PuXuan Hotel and Spa A building from Ole Scheeren’s Beijing studio, many of its rooms facing the roofs of the Forbidden City.
- Waldorf Astoria Beijing Architecture by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill, and rooms dressed in black lacquer, red and gold.
- Shangri-La Shougang Park, Beijing Lissoni & Partners on a reclaimed industrial site in the west of the city, with a climbing wall in the kids’ club.
Where to dine
Two tables with three stars.
From the MICHELIN Guide 2026, shown for information. We have no arrangement with any of these restaurants.
- Xin Rong Ji (Xinyuan South Road) Three Michelin stars Taizhou ¥¥¥¥ Genesis Beijing, Chaoyang
- Chao Shang Chao Three Michelin stars Chao Zhou ¥¥¥¥ CP Center, Jinhe East Road
- King’s Joy Two Michelin stars Vegetarian ¥¥¥¥ Wudaoying Hutong, Dongcheng
- Lamdre Two Michelin stars Vegan ¥¥¥¥ Gongti North Road, Chaoyang
- Jingji Two Michelin stars Beijing cuisine ¥¥¥¥ The Ritz-Carlton, Jianguo Road
- Lu Shang Lu Two Michelin stars Shandong ¥¥¥¥ Sunshine Financial Center, Chaoyang
- Blackswan Two Michelin stars French contemporary ¥¥¥¥ Luohong Art Museum, Shunyi
- Shanghai Cuisine Two Michelin stars Shanghainese ¥¥¥ Pacific Century Place, Chaoyang
- Il Ristorante - Niko Romito One Michelin star Italian ¥¥¥¥ Bvlgari Hotel, Chaoyang
Elsewhere in China
More reasons to come.
- Xi'an The Terracotta Army, and the old city walls.
- Shanghai The Bund, facing the towers of Pudong across the river.
- Hangzhou West Lake, and the tea villages in the hills around it.
- Chengdu Giant pandas, tea houses and Sichuan cooking.
- Guilin Karst peaks along the Li river.
- Sanya The beaches of Hainan island, in the far south.
Flying to Beijing?
Choose how you arrive.
A Business or First Class seat on a scheduled airline, or an aircraft of your own. Tell us the date and how many are travelling, and we reply with one final price, our margin included.