Beijing Part I

Our days in Beijing were spent with classical sight seeing. The Forbidden City was number one and we easily spent four hours walking from one monument to the other, happily accompanied by thousands of other Chinese and non-Chinese tourists. This huge collection of ancient imperial palaces, gates, courtyards and gardens is right in the heart of Beijing, I believe it covers an area of more than 70 hectares so it's all very impressive! And very red!

The Great Wall doesn't need any introduction. We visited it at a place called Gubeikou, together with our couch surf host Ning. We didn't really want to join the infamous Badaling tour, where hordes of tourists invade this perfectly reconstructed part of the Wall daily, so Ning offered to drive us all the way to Gubeikou (a 2,5 hour drive from Beijing) where we had the original Wall (almost) all to ourselves. A fantastic alternative!