Is this Forbidden City area sightseeing strategy doable?
 

Hi. I plan to take a cab to Tiananmen and walk into Forbidden City, out into Beihai Park to the back lakes for a rickshaw tour and back to the Houhai area for dinner.

Is this doable or will it be extremely strenuous for kids? Note that I will be with two kids below 10 and therefore will only pass through Tiananmen and FC for the souvenir photo shots. Still, how long a distance are we talking about here?

Should I just break this down into Temple of Heaven, Tiananmen and FC one day and Drum Tower, Beihai and hutongs for another day?

Finally, are there toilets inside/around these sites? In FC? In Beihai? I'm sorry for being a pest about this issue but my daughter for some reason needs to go every 15minutes! And are there eating places within Beihai?

I think your itinerary is ambitious without kids.

Some thoughts from my recollections of Beijing that i think you may find useful.

Every subway station required you to go through a security checkpoint ( think airport). To reach Tianamen Square (TS) you need to go through an underpass and pass through a similar security checkpoint. I remember thinking TS wasnt particularly interesting, Seeing the Mausoleum would be imo chaotic with kids.

The FC, Beihai part and Temple of Heaven along with just about every other attraction in Beijing is big, very big. None of them are places you can really just pass through in half an hour or so - especially if your daughter really does need to use the toilet every half hour. You will end up skipping alot of the attractions.

I found it very difficult to vsit a few attractions a day due to opening & closing times (along with the size of the places).

I dont recall any food vendors in Beihai -Although they may very well have been food stalls.

The metro security checkpoints were completely ignorable the last time I was in Beijing. They were only interested in people carrying lots of stuff.
Has that changed recently due to the Oct parade? I guess I'll find out as I am there next week.

I think you'd be better off trying to see fewer places at a slower pace. I spent all afternoon at the Temple of Heaven complex in July. I think we walked to Tianenmen (sorry I'm too lazy to check the spelling) and then took the subway back to the hotels. We spent about two hours in the Temple of Heaven. It could be done faster if you just went to the main three buildings. There were long lines to see inside the two main buildings.

I'd rather have time to sit in the parks and rest, particularly with small children.

I don't recall having a problem finding toilets. There were several in the Temple of Heaven complex.

I didn't go to the Forbidden City.

I don't remember any particular security in the subways. They were checking bags, but we just walked by.

FYI, Houhai = 后海 = "Back [Lake]"

From Tian'an Men in a straight line through the FC without deviation, left to the south entrance of Bei Hai Park and up the east side (but not around the top) to the north exit and across the road to the southern tip of the Shicha Hai (proper name for 'Back Lakes') and up the east bank of the Qian Hai ('Front Lake') to the southern tip of the Hou Hai ('Back Lake') would by itself be over 3.5km. The Hou Hai itself is around 1km long, with various turns into alleys with temples and shopping (and you've the Xi Hai ('West Lake') beyond that if you want to complete the set).

Assuming a deviation into Tian'an Men Square (itself about 0.75km long) that's all going to amount to a fairly long day on foot for children, even with a highly regrettable and overpriced made-for-tourists rickshaw ride to amuse them in the middle.

Why not just go with the flow and see what catches the children's imagination en route, hopping into a cab to complete the trip when tiredness strikes? There are, for instance, a fine exhibitions of clocks and automata of toys, and of jewellery within the Forbidden City itself, and the children may well find the labyrinth of smaller scale courtyards to either side of the main axis of the northern section more interesting than whizzing straight north past the main halls.

You might also consider other attractions of more interest to children to break up the multi-day onslaught of Ming architecture you're considering. The Planning Museum (just off the southeast corner of Tian'an Men) has a 3D digital movie of flying over Beijing, or there's an excellent little-visited railway museum in the northeast of the city with dozens of steam engines on which to clamber, for instance.

Peter N-H
China

This sounds like the sort of itinerary that some guided tour would try to pull off: oh, look, now we're walking past the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall, and here's the Meridian Gate, and on your left you can see the... alright, now back on the bus, everyone! :rolleyes:

It's definitely overly ambitious if you want to actually see anything and not just march past and take some snapshots. Especially with kids. Break it up, take things more slowly, and actually take the time to experience the places rather than just walk through.

As to the security checkpoints, at least as of last month, these were completely a non-issue. Unless you look very suspicious or have a lot of luggage, you can just keep walking. TSA-style security for an entire metro system that carries as many passengers as Beijing's does is simply impractical to implement. Security-related delays are certainly not a major concern, unless things have changed significantly in the run-up to the anniversary festivities.

I'd like to think it's a step above that since I'm pretty sure that I'm the one that originally planted the seed that gave rise to this thread. :)

But, seriously, I just like the idea of knocking off all of the aforementioned sites during a single continuous stretch,... without spending too much time pondering the past of specific artifacts.

Given the fact that it's self guided, there's zero gift shop pressure and there are many opportunities to speed things up (i.e. jump in a taxi) or call it quits midway through.

I've done the same jaunt many times (though usually no Drum Tower) and have rarely gotten started before 1pm.

1) I don't think Tiananmen square takes that much walking. Go in one entrance, look around, and go out another, at the forbidden city (north) end.

2) The forbidden city is a lot of walking if you want to see it all. It is very large and there are numerous corridors and buildings to visit. You may not want to see it all, but even a little bit is a good amount. Not saying they can't do it, but I was quite tired walking around it for 3 hours or so.

There are bathrooms in the FC at various points, but not all conveniently located, IIRC.

Is it going to be too cold?
 

oops. delete.