Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Beijing Day 3: The Great Wall of China

With Jane, our wonderful tour guide.

Seeing The Great Wall was by far my favorite part of our trip to Beijing. The structure itself was absolutely amazing, and its history, equally so.

Built, rebuilt and maintained between the 6th century BC and the 16th century, the series of walls was intended to protect China from attacks from the north.

Constructed primarily along mountaintops to make it even more difficult to overtake, during the Ming dynasty, it was guarded by more than 1 million men.
In total, the Great Wall spans over 6,700 km, or 4,160 miles!
The section of the Wall that we visited is known as the North Pass, Badaling, the primary entrance point to China's capital, Beijing.

The views from the wall its watchtowers were breathtaking! Thankfully we visited on a clear and sunny day, with fantastic visibility.

A number of the sections were incredibly steep - we were definitely winded as we climbed and couldn't help but marvel that men had actually scaled the difficult terrain while building.

Standing atop one of the world's Seven Wonders - what an amazing and unforgettable experience.

2 comments:

Melissa said...

I am playing it cool and acting like I'm not jealous. Is it working?

Ann-Marie said...

Despite always saying that I've never had much of a desire to visit China, I have always wanted to see the Great Wall. Your pictures have solidified that for me. So I guess I DO want to go to China!