Beijing

Beijing was the emperors' capital for five centuries, and the city still has that scale. Behind vermilion walls, the Forbidden City lines up close to a thousand buildings, courtyard after courtyard, under yellow tiled roofs. In front of it opens Tiananmen Square, an esplanade so vast it looks empty even when it is full. The Summer Palace spreads out a man-made lake, an endless painted gallery and a hill covered in pavilions, where the court lived away from the walls of the Forbidden City. Beihai Park wraps around another lake, with a white stupa set on an island. Inside the Lama Temple, incense burns by the armful and an eighteen-metre Buddha was carved from a single sandalwood trunk. An hour and a half out of town, the Great Wall of China rolls from ridge to ridge as far as the eye can see. Peking duck is carved at the table with its skin still crackling, and the old lanes keep their square courtyards behind red doors.