The Great Wall of China
I don’t think you can overdo the superlatives when it comes to the Great Wall of China. I’ve seen plenty of photos before, but I failed to imagine how dramatically this massive structure snakes over the mountains of Northern China. We hiked a little over four miles of the Wall today, and what we saw was truly stunning. Who could have had the audacity to think you could build such a thing?
I was truly blown away by these four miles of the Wall. And yet this thing stretches for 6,000 miles!
Jim and Mark at the Great Wall
The cloudy weather was not ideal for pictures, though it added its own dramatic sort of beauty. Plus it was quite comfortable for walking. Better yet, we saw vast stretches of the Wall without another soul in sight. This was our last full day in China for a while, and it left me in awe of this people.
For anyone venturing to China, I’d like to give a shout out to Great Wall Hiking, a company that specializes in small-group hiking tours of the Wall. I chose them for their rave reviews on TripAdvisor, and they lived up to it. Our guide Peter was perfect, providing exactly the amount of guidance and information that we wanted, no more, no less. Maximum group six is eight people, though our group today was only three — us and a nice guy from Germany named Hans. And unlike many tour companies, they advertise, and practice, a policy of no obnoxious factory shopping stops. Thanks, Peter, for a great day!
I’m really impressed with your writing skills as well as with the layout on your weblog. Is this a paid theme or did you customize it yourself? Anyway keep up the nice quality writing, it抯 rare to see a great blog like this one these days..
Thanks – very kind of you!