[Itinerary Page]The Daily Diary of a Wandering Restaurateur
April 24 - The Great Wall and Beyond
Road trip! Miao arranged for us to have a van and driver for the day. This meant we could set our own schedule rather than being herded around on a bus tour -- certainly more to my liking. We made a quick stop for her to handle the details of our cruise tickets, then headed for the Great Wall.
Only two sections of the wall have been restored enough for visitors. Most tours go to the Badaling section ... so of course we set out for the section less visited. It took us two hours to get to the site and another two hours to get up to, along and back down from the wall itself.
We searched out a restaurant for a non-descript lunch then headed for the Ming Tomb complex, which turned out to be only partially open ... complicated by the fact that it is so spread out that each section of it has a separate admission fee. A light sprinkling of rain was enough to convince us that we were really too tired to do much more exploring.
The toughest part of the trip was getting through the Beijing traffic to our hotel. We were in a virtual parking lot for close to three hours. By the time we got back to the hotel, Margene and I decided that we didn't even have the energy to go to dinner. Some days are like that. As usual, I will let the pictures do most of the talking. Ciao for now.
© 2008 Restaurant Doctor