The brides are everywhere. If you are in Beijing for a weekend and want to see the two most-favored tourist sites - the Olympic Sports Complex and Forbidden City - you may well run into young models hitching up their satin bridal gowns and running down Gulouwai Dajie for a photo shoot. You may even find a real bride and groom in front of a restaurant on Di'anmen Dajie, releasing balloons in the air.

Hit the road if you don't want to miss these unexpected delights along the way. The distance is not as daunting as it might appear. From the south gate of the Olympic Forest Park to Forbidden City, the north-south axis cutting Beijing vertically down the middle is just about 11 km. But a hop across the bridge on the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368) canal in Gulouwai Dajie, straddles at least seven centuries. The hutong-dominated area south of the canal, running like a watery ring around the old city, began evolving in the mid-1300s, while the Olympic Sports Complex neatly laid out around a 4.5-km stretch in the north of the axis is chronologically and temperamentally 21st century.