Potala Palace

Potala Palace, located in Lhasa, Tibet, was the primary residence of the Dalai Lama until 1959, when the 14th Dalai Lama fled to Dharamsala after a failed uprising.

Today the Potala Palace is a state museum, a popular tourist attraction and an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

What to See
Potala Palace, with flat roofs at various levels and vast inward-sloping walls broken only by straight rows of many high windows, is not unlike a fortress in appearance.

The White Palace.
At the south base of the rock is a large space enclosed by walls and gates, with great porticos on the inner side. A series of tolerably easy staircases, broken by intervals of gentle ascent, leads to the summit of the rock. The whole width of this is occupied by the palace.

Potala Palace in the sunshine.
The central part of this group of buildings rises in a vast quadrangular mass above its satellites to a great height, terminating in gilt canopies similar to those on the Jokhang. This central member of Potala is called the Red Palace, for obvious reasons.

The Red Palace contains the principal halls as well as the chapels and shrines of past Dalai Lamas. There is in these much rich decorative painting, with jewelled work, carving and other ornament.