We took a trip to Beijing’s Fragrant Hills to see the fall foliage, for which 香山 is celebrated in popular Chinese imagination. It was a weekday, but the park and its paths were still packed with people. Getting photos was difficult. It was a nice walk, but the hills still have a ways to go before they recover from the deforestation of the 2nd half of the 20th century.

There used to be interesting historical sites on these mountains, but they were apparently all burnt down by invading Western forces during the 2nd Opium War, as the signs posted at each place of interest will point out.

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