Beijing - Part 2: The Great Wall and Summer Palace

While touring around Beijing, we ran across many different people who suggested that when going to see the Great Wall, we do not go to the famous Badaling section, as it is very touristy and over-crowded most days. Instead we were recommended to travel further north to the much older Mutianyu section. I am so thankful that we did! It was first thing in the morning, it was quiet, peaceful and only a few other tourists were there. :) We had to drive about an hour and twenty minutes out of Beijing into the mountains, but we had a great driver, Jack, who assured us it was well worth the driving time. The temperature there was A LOT colder than Beijing! We had to take a chair lift up to the Wall because it was so far up the mountain. Glad I had my fuzzy green toque and my warm Canada mitts! :)

I was ridiculously excited!!! Afterall, this was THE site I had traveled all the way to China to see and experience! :)

This was the first real glimpse of the wall as we got to the top of the lift......

And this is the view from the top of the Wall! :) It was simply breathtaking. I was very overwhelmed with where I was standing and what I was standing on. By far, my most memorable and most moving experience of the entire trip.

We walked a ways along the Wall to one of the lookout towers and took a bunch of "proof that I was here" pictures............LOL! :)

Here's a few taken from peering out the windows of the lookout tower......makes me wonder who else back in the time of Mongol invaders had looked out this same window and saw almost exactly the same landscape I was seeing.......I love that intense feeling of history some places evoke!!! :)

The Wall went on seemingly forever! You can see it move east in this pic.........following the ridge and then northwest in the next pic.

If you look really carefully, you can see it snake along the mountain ridges in the very far distance - I had my camera on maximum zoom for the second one. It's amazing to think of all the years and lives dedicated to the construction of such a wall in such an extremely rugged environment!

Our next stop that day was the Summer Palace, located within the city limits of Beijing. It was the home of the crazy "Dragon Lady", Dowager Cixi. She was the grandmother of the last emperor of China. There was a reason they called her "Dragon Lady"......she was extremely power hungry and controlled the throne by virtually controlling the emperors. Whenever she saw that her power over them was weakening, she would have them killed. This included her own son! Nasty, eh? She ended up selling Hong Kong in order to finish furnishing her Summer Palace. So needless to say, she is not popular amongst the Chinese people.

Back to the pics! The temperature seemed to drop throughout the day and by the time we arrived at the grounds of the Summer Palace, I seriously thought we might end up getting frostbite or hypothermia. The sun still hadn't burned off all the fog, so the air is still a bit hazy in some of these pics......

Here is one looking in the opposite direction. You can see the bridge of 17 arches connecting another part of the Summer Palace grounds to a nice building on an island.....if only we had come in the middle of the SUMMER.....LOL!

Walking along the shore to get to the main buildings. Passed by a sweet looking gate! Not sure where it led to, but I thought it looked pretty! :)

Us at the bottom!

Getting a little closer....

Starting up the last of 5 huge flights of steps..........

The view from part-way up! :) Looks cold, eh? LOL It assure you it was!

And the view from the top! :)

There were a lot of different types of mythical creature statues all over the grounds. Here are some of them! They each have significant meaning and were placed in their positions for various purposes.......I'm not going to lie, I can't remember what they were! LOL

Alright, I have one more post to do and then you've seen it all!