Things to do in Beijing

Landmark · Dongcheng, dead centre

Five centuries of imperial palace on the city's axis, with an artificial hill directly behind it built from the moat spoil.

Local tip: Skip the palace queue on your first visit and climb Jingshan opposite instead. It costs almost nothing, takes fifteen minutes, and gives you the only view that makes the scale of the place legible — the whole grid of golden roofs laid out below you.

Neighborhood · Dongcheng, around the Drum and Bell Towers

The best-surviving stretch of old Beijing — grey-brick lanes, courtyard houses, small bars and the city's most liveable historic quarter.

Local tip: Nanluoguxiang is the tourist lane and is best avoided. Walk one street east or west into Baochao Hutong or Fangjia Hutong, where the same architecture is full of workshops, cafés and people who live there.

Culture · Chaoyang, north-east

A 1950s East German-designed electronics factory complex turned into China's best-known contemporary art district.

Local tip: The galleries have become commercial and the district is very busy at weekends. Go on a weekday and walk beyond the main strip into the adjacent Caochangdi area, where the smaller, more serious galleries relocated when 798 got expensive.

Food · Dongcheng, Dongzhimen Inner Street

A kilometre of red-lanterned restaurants that stays open through the night, built around crayfish, hotpot and grilled fish.

Local tip: It is loud, red and unapologetically for eating late. Order the málà xiǎolóngxiā in season and expect gloves. For the quieter Beijing classic, go instead for copper-pot mutton shuàn yángròu — plain broth, sesame dip, and nothing else.

Nature · ≈130 km north-east, Miyun district

A long, partly restored and partly wild section of wall along a ridge, with a fraction of the crowds of the nearer sites.

Local tip: Badaling is the coach-park version and Mutianyu is the comfortable one. Jinshanling is the walk — three to four hours of ridge with the wall running out of sight in both directions. Go on a weekday, take water, and start early.

Culture · Shijingshan, western outskirts

A small Ming temple from the 1440s holding some of the finest surviving mural painting in China, viewed by torchlight in a dark hall.

Local tip: Almost nobody goes, because it is out west and there is nothing else nearby. The murals were painted by imperial court artists and are shown to small groups with a guide and a hand torch — a genuinely extraordinary hour, and the closest thing Beijing has to a secret.