Half a Day: Which Park?

The one that needs the half-day, and the one that repays it: budget the ¥60 ticket and the whole afternoon, or you will see the crowded quarter and miss the rest. Do not tack it onto a Forbidden City day, do not come on a Monday expecting the pavilion, the theatre or Suzhou Street, and do not get off at Beigongmen if you want the classic route — that is the back gate. The traps are the two clocks (park to 20:00, inner gardens to 18:00) and the ¥30 park ticket, which leaves out everything on the hill. For older visitors it is the best documented of the four: free wheelchairs at all seven gates, two step-free loops from the East Palace Gate, and free entry over 60 on a passport. For first-timers with a free half-day who want the one great garden; families and older travellers who will use the ferries and the step-free loops.

The closest of the four to Qianmen and the one with two lives: from 6:00 it is the neighbourhood's park, from 8:00 it is the altar. Go early or late — from 9:30 to 15:00 the Hall of Prayer is a tour-bus scrum and the Echo Wall is useless — and do not come on a Monday expecting the halls: the park is open, the buildings are locked. The traps are the ¥15 park ticket, which is not the hall ticket, and the South Gate, which is the right ritual order and the wrong distance from the metro. The window handles passports for the over-60 free ticket; for everyone else, walk-up sales on peak days are simply not published. For the one-afternoon visitor based near Qianmen or Wangfujing; anyone who wants a Beijing morning before the halls open.

A working temple at full tilt, and the one Beijing sight whose rules are worth reading first, because they are the clearest in the city: ¥25, tickets on the day at the window or on the temple's WeChat official account, and an official page that says exactly how a passport holder gets in. Do not go on the 1st or 15th of the lunar month or through Spring Festival, when the courtyards are shoulder to shoulder and the smoke is thick; go on a weekday afternoon, and be in by 15:00 — the last ticket is 16:30 and the grounds clear at 17:00. The traps: the metro station is not the entrance (walk to the south end of the street), the halls are for worship first (no photographs inside), and bring nothing to burn; free incense is handed out at Zhaotai Gate. The trade-off with the parks is time: this is 90 minutes, not a half-day, and it has no dawn. For first-timers with a passport and no Chinese phone number who want the surest ticket of the four; anyone with a Monday to fill.

The park Beijing families actually use: cheap, big, flat, boats on the lake, and open until 21:00 in summer — the one to keep for an evening. The park ticket is not the whole park: the round city, the temple on the island and the north-shore gardens need the ¥20 combined ticket, and they shut on Mondays and by 18:00 even in summer, so come Tuesday to Sunday and be inside the courtyards by mid-afternoon. The trap for a foreign visitor is the ticketing itself — online sales are tied to a Chinese ID card and nothing is published about passports or walk-up paper tickets, so treat it as the cheap gamble with Jingshan's ¥2 gate across the street as the fallback. With children, the boats; with older visitors, the flat lake loop and no published wheelchair details. For families and evening walkers based in the centre; the cheapest lake in the city for anyone who has already done the Summer Palace.