Day trip to the Great Wall

Today we tackled the Great Wall heading North from Beijing about 75 km thru a stop and go maze of 8 lane grid lock ring roads and small two lane roads through peach and apple orchards. There are 6 sections of the Wall open to the public and our driver and tour guide Yao navigated it all with ease to get us there in a couple hours after pickup from our hotel. The Mutianyu section we visited is 5 km long and we took a cable car up to one of the towers and walked from there. What's really amazing about this whole thing is it stretches from the desert to the sea some 8000+ km right along the top ridges of the highest mountains. I guess for best sight lines for good defense. We walked around up and down stairs from tower to tower for a few hours. Aurora had the most fun kicking the soccer ball around on the top of tower 17. She liked the stone slab work too trying to follow the mortar lines and peak through the drain holesRead more