Beijing

At the heart of it all lies the Forbidden City, the largest preserved wooden palace complex on Earth: some 980 buildings across 72 hectares, home to 24 Ming and Qing emperors for nearly five centuries. An audio guide walks you along its central axis — from the Meridian Gate to the private quarters where dynasties rose and fell — before you climb neighbouring Jingshan Park for the classic panorama over its sea of golden roofs. South of Tiananmen Square, the Temple of Heaven spreads across a park nearly four times the size of the palace; its Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests was raised entirely of wood, without a single nail, for the emperor's solstice rites. To the northwest, the Summer Palace pairs Kunming Lake with the 728-metre Long Corridor and its 14,000 painted scenes.

No visit is complete without the Great Wall of China, and Beijing is its gateway: restored Badaling is the closest and most famous stretch, while wilder Jinshanling rewards hikers with ridgeline watchtowers marching to the horizon. Here the audio guides give the stones their voice — garrisons, beacon fires, and centuries of engineering underfoot.

Between the monuments runs old Beijing itself: the hutongs, a maze of grey-brick alleys and siheyuan courtyard homes where laundry lines, chess games and bicycle bells still set the rhythm. Wander them toward the incense-clouded Lama Temple, drift past the White Dagoba in Beihai Park, then jump forward a century in the 798 Art District, where a decommissioned factory complex now houses galleries and studios. End the day the local way — crisp Peking duck, dumplings, hot pot — in a city that serves three millennia of history one street, and one story, at a time.