Two hundred and thirty kilometres northeast of Beijing, Chengde sits in a fold of the Yanshan mountains where the air is cooler and the pace noticeably slower. For three centuries this was the summer capital of the Qing emperors, who fled the Beijing heat to hold court here among lakes, pavilions, and forested hills. That imperial past is the reason to come: Chengde has one of the finest concentrations of eighteenth-century Chinese architecture anywhere, and it has not been overwhelmed by mass tourism.
The centrepiece is the Mountain Resort (避暑山庄 — literally "avoiding the heat mountain villa"), a vast walled park covering about 564 hectares. The Kangxi Emperor chose this valley in 1703, and his successors Yongzheng and Qianlong spent decades expanding it into a complex of palaces, pagodas, lakes, and meadows. Since the government followed the emperor, Chengde was effectively the political capital of the Chinese empire for much of the 1700s.
Ringing the outside of the resort wall are the Eight Outer Temples (外八庙), built in architectural styles drawn from across China and its frontier peoples — Tibetan, Mongolian, Han. The most dramatic is the Putuo Zongcheng Temple, modelled on the Potala Palace in Lhasa. The Puning Temple, built in 1755, houses a 22-metre wooden statue of the bodhisattva Guanyin — the tallest of its kind in the world. Xumi Fushou and Pule complete the main circuit, with Anyuan and Shuxiang for the more determined visitor. The resort and temples together form a UNESCO World Heritage Site designated in 1994.
Chengde's old name, Rehe (热河, "hot river"), came from the local river that refused to freeze in winter. Most of the river now runs dry following upstream damming, but the name stuck. The city itself is pleasant and manageable — a good base for two or three days.