Forbidden City

Tiananmen Square is the enormous public area in front on the Forbidden City, the largest public square in the world.  Whilst it is best known in the West for the scenes that took place there in 1989, now it is full of tour groups rather than protesters.

The Forbidden City is the enormous imperial palace in the centre of Beijing.  If you have watched films like The Last Emperor or Hero, you will be familiar with it's overall looks.  What those films won't have prepared you for is the sheer size of the Forbidden City.  As you walk through each gate, yet another large courtyard opens before you, each surrounded on all four sides by buildings in various states of repair, ranging from fully restored, through covered in scaffolding, to try not to sneeze in case you blow it down! At the time that we where there, the Forbidden City was crowded with other tourists.