Walking on the Great Wall of China
One of the many photos of the Great Wall
I spent my second day in Beijing at one of the best places on the planet – The Great Wall of China. If you have only a limited time in Beijing, you must dedicate most of a day to seeing the Great Wall because you really can spend a whole day visiting the wall and feel like you still haven’t accomplished much. Lucky for me, I had 6 days in Beijing so it’s not like I was going to have to make hard choices about what to see in Beijing.
When I first decided to visit China, I knew I had to see the Great Wall. I could not imagine the looks I would get from people back home if I went to China and said that I didn’t see the Great Wall. After seeing the Great Wall for the first time, I now realize that every subsequent trip I take to China will have to involve a trip to a different spot of the Great Wall. Before staring blankly into your screen, realize that the Great Wall stretches for over 8,800KM (5,500 Miles) and has many sections to visit.
I was lucky that I didn’t have worry about getting to the Great Wall of China. My Chinese friend arranged with one of her friends to drive me to a section near Beijing. I understand from talking to other travelers that you can get to different sections of the Great Wall via public bus and taxis. I certainly appreciated my Chinese friends helping me out.
After about a 1-1.5 hour drive outside of Beijing, I arrived at the Badaling section of the Great Wall. Now, many guidebooks will call this the most “touristy” section of the Great Wall and I will say that there was a lot of people, but I was thankful to just be on the Great Wall. I was visiting Badaling on a weekday which reduced the amount of people there. I understand it does get busy on the weekends though. Also, even though there was a lot of people at the Badaling section of the Great Wall, I was able to hike to certain sections of the Wall where there was very few people. So it is possible to get away from people even at the busiest section of the Great Wall.
So what’s it like to be on the Great Wall? The Wall is not built in a straight line. It curves in many sections and walking on it is more up and down and has slopes rather than a nice leisurely flat walk. For those who like to work out, hiking on the wall was a nice workout. One of the amazing things about the Wall is how well it has stood the test of time. I’m sure this is different for other sections, but it is built in the mountains just outside Beijing. The wall reaches a height of 25 feet or about 7.8 meters and 16 feet or 5 meters wide at Badaling. The feat of engineering that the Chinese did in building the Great Wall is truly amazing.
The Wall is no "walk in the park"
It really is hard to describe just why the Great Wall is so “great”. Unfortunately, my post can not even begin to do justice to the experience of standing on the Great Wall. I could share facts like the Great Wall has been designated as one of the new 7 wonders of the world, but that still does not adequately describe it. The Great Wall seems like it is never ending. Every time I reached a top of one section, there was always more Wall around the corner and in the distance. As I stopped and took photos from different points of the Wall, I tried to take in the beauty of the surroundings and admire the work that it must have took to actually build this wall. As I walked along, I thought about how something like the Great Wall would never be built today just due to how much something like the Wall would cost to build. Doing further research, I learned that the Chinese builders tried to use local resources as much as possible to reduce the expense of building the Wall.
Official Designation as one of the New Seven Wonders of the World
The Great Wall really does not End
I close this post by saying the Great Wall is truly an awesome and “great” structure. It is a unique and once in a lifetime structure that will never be replicated again. One thing that I’ve learned in my trip in China is that the Chinese imagination for building things on a grand scheme is one of a kind in itself.
Take a look at the rest of my photos in my Great Wall of China Gallery.
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