Half Day Tour of Hutong and Drum tower (seat-in-coach tour) 3 hours

Itinerary: 

7:30am in the morning (or 1:00pm in the afternoon) Picked up from your hotel and begin your tour with a visit to the charming hutongs around Qianhai and Houhai lakes. Taking a rickshaw (pedi-cab) will keep your feet relatively happy. The narrow streets and the courtyards homes have been the signature of Beijing's urban landscape since the Ming dynasty. As you wander through them, you may feel as though you have stepped back in time.

After hutong tour, you will visit the magnificent gardens at Prince Gong's Mansion, Beijing's largest and the best preserved royal mansion of Qing Dynasty.

At last you will visit the home of a real Chinese family and climb to the top of an old Drum Tower for a bird’s eye view of the area.

Transferred back to your hotel after the half day tour. 

Hutong is a unique form of community that exists only in China. Surrounding the Forbidden City, most of Hutongs were built in the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties (1271-1911). In the prime of the three dynasties, the emperors planned the city and arranged the residential areas so as to establish supreme power for them. The most famous Hutong in Beijing is near the Houhai Lake. Here you can feel the real Chinese neighborhood culture. Go along the Hutong you will see the Drum Tower.

Drum Tower is 46.7 meters high. It is an arched wooden structure with three layers of upturned eaves, covered with grey tube shaped tiles and edged with green glazed tiles. The drums are beaten every 30 minutes on the top and bottom of the hour. So you can enjoy the interesting drum beating show.

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