Trips From The Past: TBB Family Visiting the Great Wall of China

I am digging into the computer archives and digging up old trips we have done. One day I will put together our 2009 trip to Beijing in one massive trip report. Until then, enjoy these daily excursions. No need to ask, miles were burned for the flights of course, come on! As you know I am still traveling somewhere in the Persian Gulf these days…

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Our driver was at the hotel to pick us up at 6 am and we were on our way to see the Great Wall. It was a very chilly morning and warmed up later. There are several places where people can climb the Great Wall. We arranged to go to the busiest one called Badaling. There are others that are better but are much further and we wanted to combine this sight with seeing the Ming Tombs and the Summer Palace and still make it back by early evening.

The road to Badaling:

We stopped here at the Juyongguan Pass where we took some pics:

At Badaling now where there are many tourist shops around:

We took cable cars up the mountain to the Great Wall:

We are there! Elevation is 1,000 meters. Just 70km northwest of Beijing. This is where President Nixon came on his 1972 visit. First erected during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), there was a lot of restoration done to it in the 1950s and the 1980s. Here the wall is about 6 meters wide, all in brick. What a sight, another “moment”!














A watchtower:























On our way to the Ming Tombs. A pic of some cranes, you see them a lot in this country:

A few memorable things from here were:

Kostas and Sophia have been a hit with the locals and they were asked to have pictures taken with them. Sophia of course adores doing it. Kostas does not like doing it that much.

In a few occasions, Dad was asked to take a picture with some local Chinese ladies and he obliged flattered. We joked that if we lost our money we can make it up by having Dad with a sign “Photos with me 5 yuan…with smile 2 yuan extra” lol. Of course the kids will be at least 10 yuan!

The cable cars were safe but kind of old and it was a bit scary riding them.

We have seen pretty good sanitary conditions in this country. But the bathrooms by the cable cars were heavily used and the line to the women bathroom went on and on. For such a heavily touristy place they could do much better here!

Lots of vendors in the Wall selling knick knacks.

Looking at the horizon where the Wall was snaking into the mountains was definitely a “moment”.

And I leave you with this…

TBB
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