This was the final full day of sightseeing for the nearly 170 participants in the Beijing to Lhasa road trip; the next day, most everyone would be heading home.  While most trip participants spent this morning at the Tibet Museum, my small group decided to see the nearby Norbu Lingka instead.  This is a doorway along a wall surrounding a number of the palaces at the Norbu Lingka.

Bands on an entryway door to Kelsang Potrang, the summer palace of the eighth Dalai Lama at Norbu Lingka.  Unlike the huge, self-contained Potala Palace a few miles away, the Norbu Lingka - the summer home of the seventh through fourteenth Dalai Lamas - is a series of small palaces within a park.  And unlike the dramatic mountaintop setting of the Potala, the simple flat park of Norbu Lingka is quite prosaic.

Kelsang Potrang.  Fifty years ago, the current Dalai Lama lived here while his own palace - the New Summer Palace - was being built on the grounds of the Norbu Lingka.  Though the open-air hall in front of this pathway is the only part of Kelsang Potrang open to the public, it’s worth a stop for the impressive display of dozens of thangkas hanging side by side on the rafters above.

Along a wall in the Norbu Lingka.  The first palace within the park was constructed 250 years ago, and for many years afterward, a grand procession took place each spring in Lhasa as the Dalai Lama moved from his winter home to his summer home - from the Potala to the Norbu Lingka.

Ceiling and eave decoration on the gateway shown in the previous photograph.

Near Kelsang Potrang, a pavilion surrounded by a moat.  Behind me as I took this photograph was another similar pavilion on the water; together the two are called Tsokyil Potrang.  The Tibetan language can be a mouthful.

Intricate decoration on the entry gate to the New Summer Palace.

The New Summer Palace, or Takten Migyur Potrang - the Eternal Palace.  Its construction was completed for the current Dalai Lama in 1956, three years before he fled China during a Tibetan uprising.  After the damage done to this and the other palaces here by Chinese troops was repaired, the Norbu Lingka was opened to the public for the first time.

Entrance to the New Summer Palace.  The two long tiger-print velvet-covered hangings on either side of the doorway, called bokchak, symbolize prestige and power.  Such hangings can be found in doorways at the Potala Palace as well.

Detail of the door corner on the New Summer Palace entryway shown above.  As in the Potala Palace, photography is not allowed inside the New Summer Palace - which is unfortunate, because a number of the walls inside hold vast murals showing the histories of Tibet, the Dalai Lamas, and important Buddhist figures.

Decoration on a post at the entry gate to the New Summer Palace.

The Tibet Museum, right across the street from the exit of the Norbu Lingka.  My group stopped by the gift shop here, and I was glad we did; it had the best selection of better-quality Tibetan goods I had seen in Lhasa.  I found an excellent and unusual old prayer wheel that was far better than those available in shops on the Barkhor around the Jokhang Temple (on the next page).