BEIJING - The heavy weighted doors are yawned open, and stepping through them opens a little bit of imagination.

Sounds trite, perhaps. But It's a little bit Willy Wonka magic, trotting into the Forbidden City.

As the travelers of the chambers of commerce tour fanned out across one of many stone courtyards in the rectangular city Wednesday, voices lowered and descriptions swelled.

Because if anything, when entering an imperial palace long barricaded to anyone without deified blood pulsing through their veins, there's a little bit of longing.

"Every little corner, there is so much detail," said Marilee Wallace with the Coeur d'Alene Chamber, as she gawked at wood engravings in a corridor.

"Just imagine what the empress' life was like," added fellow Coeur d'Alene traveler Deborah Seagle.

Natural enough feelings.

The Forbidden City, also called the Palace Museum, lies at the epicenter of Beijing, an easy metaphor for the 24 emperors who called it home for 500 years.

The 720,000 square meters is a giant Tetris game of crimson halls with golden sloped roofs, boasting names like the Hall of Supreme Harmony and the Hall of Mental Cultivation.

Every twist and turn through fading red walls and compact corridors spills out to yet another building, yet another courtyard, yet another temple.

For the small-town natives it was a little overwhelming.

"It's absolutely huge. What's amazing about it is most of it was built for one man and one woman," said Coeur d'Alene resident Lowell Stevens.

A couple miles of roaming covered roughly two-thirds of the imperial city. Although visitors aren't allowed inside buildings, the tour guide halted every so often to let folks peer through windows of concubines' quarters and the empress' digs. The guide's historical lessons included stories of concubines' lifestyles and the emperor's chair, rigged with a ceiling fixture to kill potential usurpers.

Pat Crabtree of Kansas City, Mo., traveling with Kootenai County friends and family, said she wouldn't test it.

"I'll bring my own emperor's chair," she said with a laugh.

Some of the structures' paint jobs of penetrating blue, sprinkled with green swirls and golden dragons, were redone for the 2008 Olympics. Much of the city's prevalent golds and greens are untouched, however, with a patina of gray weaning out the sharpness and making the buildings look as if they were behind a fog.

No inch of buildings was overlooked for ornamentation, from ceiling tiles to rooftop statues.

The emperor didn't scrimp on silverware, either. The city's museum houses old imperial effects like lacquered boxes for sweets and jade teacups.

Seagle wondered how a leader would be affected by such a lifestyle.

"He would be isolated from his people. I don't think he would be in touch with anyone outside these walls," she said.

Also to consider is the stark contrast between the Forbidden City's grandeur and the abject poverty now outside its walls, like the handful of beggars that approach tourists outside the gate.

So as the tourists exited the archway of the city gate, they spoke warmly of their own simpler, more accessible homes.

There was even a little bit of longing.

"I love where I live. Coeur d'Alene is great, we have clean air, we have water," said Madora Parmentier, citing two of China's larger environmental issues.

So she's happy not habituating the Forbidden City, even with its jade teacups?

"You bet," she said. "My imitation China corning-ware is just fine."