Nestled in the hills northwest of Beijing is the Dajue Temple, a quiet thousand-year-old retreat far from the city’s tourist sites.  Covered by ancient trees, the temple grounds are a great place to cool off during Beijing’s hot summer; however, the best time to visit is in early April when the Yulan magnolias are in bloom, which the temple celebrates with a festival.  I was a few weeks late for that, but the warm weather still made it a perfect day to visit.

This photograph and the one above are of a gingko tree that was alive when the original temple was built.  A thousand years old, it’s supposedly the oldest in Beijing.  Having seen the bright yellow leaves of another old gingko at Xiangshan Park last autumn, I hope to return here one autumn to see this massive tree again.

Doorway carvings on a pavilion at the Dajue Temple.

The fresh new leaves and craggy old bark of the thousand-year-old gingko.

Old doorways in a temple building.  Dajue is one of a number of ancient Buddhist temples west of Beijing; some of those other temples are even older than this one.

The Dajue Temple boasts not only the oldest gingko tree in Beijing, but also the oldest Yulan magnolia, at three hundred years of age.  This is the same kind of magnolia pictured earlier in this collection of Beijing photographs at Yuyuantan Park and the Summer Palace.  The blossoms had dropped by this time in early May, leaving behind these very shady leaves.

The Jialing Pagoda, the tallest feature on the Dajue Temple grounds.  Jialing was the monk who supposedly brought the first Yulan magnolias to the temple three hundred years ago, from Sichuan province far to the west.

More leaves from the old magnolia tree.  Surprisingly, the tree isn’t cordoned off; it appears in the middle of a very nice outdoor teahouse, and this branch was directly over my head at my table.  I should make special mention of the Minghui Teahouse; it’s one of the nicest I’ve visited in China, and perhaps the most pleasant; musicians played traditional instruments while patrons like me sipped tea and ate cherries in the shade.  The staff can conduct a 21-step formal tea ceremony; they actually went to college to learn tea culture.  The tea itself is expensive, because of its very high quality; fine tea can be amazingly expensive in China.  The teahouse also has beautiful traditionally furnished guesthouses that look like they would make for a nice stay.

A hall near the back of the temple grounds.  Dajue Temple was a retreat for the Qing dynasty emperor Qianlong when he wanted to get away from Beijing to study Buddhism.  Mao stayed here for a while as well, but he probably had other things on his mind.

More of the old Yulan magnolia’s leaves.

A new addition to my “Great Signs of China” series, the first to involve no mistranslation.  In China, ratings are given to great hotels, restaurants, and, er, public toilets.  So you can go with confidence.

A final shot of a gingko leaf caught in sunlight near a temple wall.  The Dajue Temple is some twenty miles northwest of Beijing, and it takes upwards of an hour to get there from downtown, so it’s best to have a driver who knows the way.  And while it’s not the first site one should see in Beijing, it’s certainly worth a visit during an extended stay.