Drum Tower drums.  Earlier on the Tiananmen Square page was a photograph showing the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall, the Monument to the People’s Heroes, the national flag, and the Gate of Heavenly Peace - Tiananmen itself - all lined up perfectly from south to north.  Continuing north, that axis passes through the center of the Forbidden City, through the center of the highest Jingshan Park pavilion, and on to the Drum Tower here and then the nearby Bell Tower.

The one remaining original drum in the Drum Tower, the Night Watchman’s Drum.  The rest are replicas.  Western military forces messed this one up while putting down the Boxer Rebellion in 1900.  As with the European Palaces section of the Old Summer Palace, also destroyed by Western forces, the Chinese keep the ruins on display as a reminder.

A worn drumhead in the Drum Tower.  While the Forbidden City spans two dynasties, the Drum and Bell Towers span three: the Yuan, Ming, and Qing.  Both towers were built in 1272, early in the reign of Kublai Khan (grandson of Genghis), back when Beijing was known as Dadu and served as the Mongol capital.

The Drum Tower has been destroyed and rebuilt a number of times; the one seen today dates from the mid-Qing dynasty.  It basically served as a clock tower: the drums were beaten every couple of hours during the night, which helped civil servants know what time to line up and enter the Forbidden City every day.

The Bell Tower, as viewed from atop the Drum Tower.

Hutong rooftops below the Drum Tower.  Bricks are used atop some of these to hold down the corrugated metal roof sheeting.

Detail of the Bell Tower rooflines.

The stairway to the Drum Tower.  This is one steep and painful climb.  Unfortunately for tour groups, a visit to the Drum Tower is immediately followed by a visit to the Bell Tower, which is another steep and painful climb.

The view from the Bell Tower back south toward the Drum Tower.

Well, there it is - the bell in the Bell Tower.  Unlike the Drum Tower, which houses its many drums, a gift shop, and a live drum-beating show all in its large room, the Bell Tower consists only of a walkway around its five-hundred-year-old bell...

...and a view of the pole with which to strike it.  That’s the whole visit.

Near the Drum and Bell Towers is a historic hutong that is slowly being taken over by designer shops...

...and bars.  Lots of bars.  This photograph is one of the better entries in my occasional Great Signs of China series, not only because Tibet is about the last thing one thinks about when imagining a “romantic beer bar,” but also because of the heating coals mysteriously stacked in front of the sign.

Shopping for freshly roasted sweet potatoes near the Drum and Bell Towers.

Little lanterns for sale at a shop near the Drum and Bell Towers.

Qianhai Hu, a lake near the Drum and Bell Towers, at sunset.  A few years ago I took some black-and-white photographs of this area just after a snowstorm, which somehow made the place seem much older.

Evening falls on the Drum and Bell Towers, and entryway lights to the many nearby restaurants come to life.  It never ceases to amaze me how much history and culture can be found within this one small area of Beijing.  Most of the sights shown in this one series of pages - Tiananmen Square, Zhongshan Park, the Workers Cultural Palace, the Forbidden City, Beihai Park, and the Drum and Bell Towers - are all a short walk from here.