Beijing in 3 Days: A Plan Around Tickets and Mondays

Give day one to the Forbidden City and Jingshan, day two to the Great Wall at Mutianyu and day three to the Temple of Heaven and Qianmen, then shuffle the order until neither the palace nor the temple lands on a Monday. Both shut their main sights that day outside national holidays, while Mutianyu is open seven days a week, so a Monday in your stay belongs to the Wall. Book the palace first: its tickets go on sale at 20:00 Beijing time seven days ahead, and every other day of this plan can move around it.

This itinerary starts after you’ve arrived and checked in. Treat an arrival evening or a departure morning as extra breathing space. An airport transfer, luggage drop and a timed palace visit make a fragile combination, especially when the flight is delayed.

The order here starts from whichever date you get for the palace. Our Beijing guide runs the same sights south to north instead; either works, as long as the palace and the Temple of Heaven halls fall on Tuesday to Sunday.

Put the booked day on the calendar first

Start with the Forbidden City reservation, then fit the other days around it. The palace ticket guide covers booking, passports and prices. Here, the useful decision is how that reservation changes the rest of your stay. Admission prices stay out of this plan on purpose: the palace, Temple of Heaven and Mutianyu guides each keep their own, with the season they apply to.

What belongs here is the clock. It’s the cut-offs that decide how late you can start, and they change with the season:

Mutianyu runs its own calendar: peak hours from 16 March to 15 November, off-season hours from 16 November to 15 March, so its column doesn’t switch on the same dates as the other two. All three were read on the operators’ own pages on 8 November 2026. Treat the last-entry times as limits, never as targets.

If your stay includes a Monday, give it to Mutianyu, or spend it at the Lama Temple and ask the temple’s WeChat channel to confirm that day is open. Book the Wall trip only after the palace is confirmed, and pick one with free cancellation if you can: if the palace date moves, the Wall day moves with it.

Choose accommodation using the neighbourhood advice in the Beijing city guide. For this route, a base with straightforward access to your booked departure point is more useful than changing hotels to chase each day’s sights.

The palace day: leave room beyond the main courtyards

Morning: use your booked session. You go in at the Meridian Gate, the palace’s south entrance, after a passport and bag check, so leave a generous margin for the walk up from Tian’anmen East on Line 1 and for the queue. Carry the passport you booked with. You’ll come out at the north gate, straight across the road from Jingshan.

Aim to spend the morning and part of the afternoon inside if your session permits. The museum offers routes of different lengths, including a half-day option. Pick yours before entering: racing through every side gallery leaves less attention for the courtyards and halls you came to see. Choose a small number of extra rooms that interest you and let those shape the visit.

After the palace: Jingshan, if your legs agree. You leave by the north gate, and Jingshan is straight across the road. Entry is ¥2 (¥10 during the park’s exhibition periods), the climb is short, and from the pavilion at the top the palace roofs run away south in one sheet of yellow tile. If the stairs don’t appeal, a tea stop does the same job for your feet.

Evening: dinner near your base. Keep this evening flexible. You’ll already have spent much of the day standing and walking, and the Wall day adds more steps. A nearby meal means you can get to bed early for tomorrow’s departure without another cross-city journey.

The Wall day: keep the evening open

Mutianyu gets a complete day in this plan. Read the Mutianyu and Badaling comparison before choosing it: the right section depends on the journey you want as well as the view, and the prices of admission, shuttle and cable car are set out there.

On a guided trip, read the inclusions line by line: admission, the shuttle from the service area up to the gate, the lift, and where the return drops you. Going on your own, the Qianmen tourist line is the easiest public option, with four morning departures and three afternoon returns; the times are in our Mutianyu vs Badaling guide. The Dongzhimen line runs once each way, so missing its return ends the plan. This itinerary leaves the evening unbooked so a slow road back doesn’t cost you a show ticket.

On the Wall, pick your turning tower before you set off. The cable car lands at tower 14, and the open wall runs to tower 20 one way and back towards tower 1 the other. Walking back to the lift is the part people forget to budget, so decide how far you’ll go out while you’re still fresh.

The temple day: do the inner sights before the city walk

Morning: Temple of Heaven. Give the inner attractions the first part of this day. Take Line 5 to Tiantandongmen for the East Gate or Line 8 to Tianqiao for the West Gate. Entry to the park and entry to the halls are different things, and the Temple of Heaven ticket guide explains which ticket covers the Hall of Prayer and what it costs in each season.

The halls and altars keep shorter hours than the park. In winter the grounds open at 06:30 and the halls at 08:00, last entry 16:30, closed on Mondays outside holidays. So walk in at opening, spend the first hour among the old cypresses, and be at the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests when it opens.

Afternoon: lunch, then Qianmen on foot. After the temple, make the next leg a street walk instead of another ticketed complex. Take the metro to Qianmen (see our Beijing metro guide) and walk Qianmen Dajie, the pedestrianised street running south from the gate. Eat first if you’ve spent a cold morning outdoors: the walk is better on a full stomach than as a search for lunch. From Qianmen it’s a short walk north to Tiananmen Square, which needs a real-name reservation one to seven days ahead on the square’s official WeChat mini programme; keep your passport on you for the check on site.

You can shorten this afternoon easily. Browse a few streets and stop for tea, or return to the hotel to rest. That flexibility is useful on the final full day: packing, a tired child or simply wanting a longer meal can all be accommodated.

If the palace booking changes the whole plan

A sold-out palace date isn’t worth refreshing: the museum has said refunded tickets don’t go back on sale. In a three-day plan the quickest fix is a swap. Put Mutianyu on the day you’d planned for the palace and the palace on the Wall day, and you buy yourself another evening’s release at 20:00. The other fallbacks, from the afternoon session to group tours with admission, are in our Forbidden City tickets guide.

The Summer Palace is a possible replacement for the palace day if its gardens and lakeside setting appeal. Give it the day you have freed up, and read its own seasonal opening and inner-site closures first. If the Forbidden City is your main reason for travelling, consider changing your Beijing dates before committing to onward arrangements.

For the original plan, the palace ticket guide linked above has the seasonal admission prices. Budget separately for optional museum galleries, Jingshan, city transport, meals and your journey to Mutianyu. Admission is only one line of the day’s budget once transport and extras are included.

When one date slips, the rule is short: the palace sets its day, the Wall takes any Monday, and the Temple of Heaven halls take whichever Tuesday to Sunday is left.