A rather large wall!

One of the reasons (well, the only reason if I'm honest) that I came a day early was to give me chance to do some sightseeing whilst I was here, as I suspect it'll be a long time before I can justify another trip out here. So today I headed out to see The Great Wall!

Luckily the sun was shining and visibility was really good, but that just meant lots of other people had had the same idea. We started out to Badaling, the closest and therefore most popular section, but the traffic was so awful we had a change of plan and went to Mutianyu instead.

I obviously can't compare but Barry (who had come here a day early too as at one point we thought we had meetings today) had only been to Badaling previously said it was much better here both in terms of wall-ness and busy-ness.

Now I know this sounds daft, as I knew it went along in the mountains, but I'd assumed (until reading up on it a bit) that you'd park up right next to it and get walking. Not so. You first have to trail through a market of about 100 souvenir stalls (with some vendors being really very very pushy!) and then take a cable car up to the top of the mountain. Well, you can choose to walk up but seeing how up-y and down-y the wall was I thought it wise to save my energy for when I got there!

Anyway, we set off in the direction that the top photo above was taken, and it wasn't too bad at first - just a little undulating. But then as you can see, about level with my neck at the far right of the picture, it takes a sharp turn to the left and heads straight uphill, and I'm embarrassed to say I was completely knackered by the time I got to the top! And when I say the top you can only get as far as the tower that is about level with the top of my head!!!! It is interesting to see the difference between 'original' wall and the repaired section that you are allowed to walk along. Liu had insisted we take water, and I'm glad we did. I was also very envious of a family that had arrived not long after us and proceeded to set up a rather yummy looking picnic!

That final stretch was only 454 steps, and really doesn't look very far (this was taken only about 20 steps down). But every step is a different height, and some are wide and some are narrow so you can't get into any kind of rhythm as you walk. Or at least that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. We can't have walked any more than 1km from the start (by the tower at the crest of the hill in the distance) but it was enough. Even super fit Barry was quite tired, although I'm sure he'd have carried on walking had he been allowed. Personally I'm quite glad they provided a natural turning back point.

All in all a good day out. Even if it is only a wall! It certainly makes Hadrian's efforts look a bit feeble! It's a pity I've got to work tomorrow, I'm quite enjoying this being a tourist malarkey!