Posted by Willettsworld
50 kilometers (30 miles) northwest from Beijing lies the Ming Tombs - the general name given to the mausoleums of 13 emperors of the Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644). The mausoleums have been perfectly preserved, as has the necropolis of each of the many emperors. The site was chosen by the third Ming Dynasty emperor Yongle (1402–1424), who moved the capital of China from Nanjing to the present location of Beijing. He is credited with envisioning the layout of the ancient city of Beijing as well as a number of landmarks and monuments located therein. After the construction of the Imperial Palace (the Forbidden City) in 1420, the Yongle Emperor selected his burial site and created his own mausoleum. Only the Changling and Dingling tombs are open to the public.
I visited the main tomb of Changling as part of a tour which also included the Great Wall of China at Badaling for RMB130 that my hotel (a Home Inn - see my accommodation tips) had at their reception. This also included lunch, transport, a visit to a duck factory shop and a jade factory shop and a tour guide (although it was in Chinese with other Chinese tourists).
Posted by muratkorman
Ming Tombs lie in a broad valley about 50 kilometers northwest from Beijing City. The name itself exactly implies what it is inside. It consists of thirteen emperor mausoleums of the Ming Dynasty from 1368 to 1644. The whole mausoleums group totally covers an area of 40 square kilometers, which had took up to more than 200 years to complete. Although there are many mausoleums in Ming Tombs, only two of them—Changling and Dingling are open to public.
Changling is the first mausoleum on Ming Tombs and also the most magnificent part of the tombs, which covers an area of about 10 hectares with the other 12 tombs built around. It is the mausoleum of Emperor ZhuDi and Empress Xu. Changling is the biggest and most completed preserved tomb in Ming Tombs. To the northeast part of Changling situated Dingling on the foot of DaYu Hill, where buried the thirteenth emperor of Ming Dynasty WanLi and his two empresses. In 1583, Emperor WanLi took the chance of paying respect to the ancestors, inspected the Mausoleum Area. There he made his final decision to build tomb here and started the project in the following years.
You can spend a whole day visiting the tombs or you can join a tour which also stops by at the tombs. That will be brief and shorter, but less boring.