Forest hideaways

Labagoumen village is in northernmost Huairou district on the Hebei border, a three-hour drive from downtown Beijing. It is in the midst of a beautiful landscape where grow Beijing's biggest forests in which birch trees predominate.

Labagoumen marks the point where the vast North China Plain gives way to Yanshan Mountain, which shields the capital from northern cold fronts in winter.

The temperature in Labagoumen is at least 5 C lower in spring and summer than in urban centers. The birch-white and grassland green shades in which the village bathes offers a cool ambience that could calm the savage breast of the most desperate urban escapee.