Beijing wears three thousand years lightly. The imperial city — the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, the Great Wall beyond the western hills — sits inside a modern metropolis of ring roads and metro lines, and the two halves converse constantly: breakfast stalls in hutong alleys, office towers rising over Ming-era lakes. For a first-time visitor to China this is the natural opening chapter, and it rewards a plan: reserve the headline sights ahead, walk the central axis end to end, and keep one unhurried evening for the lakes and lanes of the old town.
