Great Wall and Ming Tombs

What a day!!! We got to climb the Great Wall and then visit the Ming Tombs - the tombs of the 13 Emperors of the Ming Dynasty.



One of our first views of the Great Wall. It took many, many centuries to build this fortification to keep out the invaders of the north. Total length is 6700 kilometres. This section that we walked upon is the most well-preserved section.

Greg and Marilyn and Jannose and I pose on the wall.

We walked up the section that was the hardest. Sometimes, there were steps and at other times, just a smooth section.




We couldn't believe the steepness of the steps. At one point, Jannose and Greg started running up the pathway, but that didn't last long. Very STEEP!!


No steps here. Marilyn and Jannose are standing straight up. Good thing it wasn't raining or snow on the Wall. Terry and Nicki said they had snow when they were here two years previous.




This was a city on the other side of the wall. Good thing I got over the fear of heights. The roller coaster in Singapore may have cured me.


The Wall follows the lay of the land and the top of the mountain. Here, Greg is bargaining with a vendor who is selling books about the Great Wall. We bought two of them for about six dollars. They were nine dollars each in the store at the hotel. Great pictures in the book. Bought the second one for my brother who had been here last summer and never got one.


Here, you could put on some period clothes and have your picture taken. There were vendors all along the Wall selling crafts, books, purses, t-shirts, hats, watches. They had to carry up all their wares each day so by the end of the day, there were good prices to be had.
Quite the experience!!!!!!




This map shows the burial places of all the Emperors buried here.



We walked all along the route but if some people were tired, they could take the little golf cart. There were sculptures all along the route which had these arches all the way along. There was a large arch at the entrance and then about three others.


The route led here and inside the temple was this large sculpture of the Emperor.

A very busy day with lots of exercise. I think I took almost 100 pictures this day alone. We showed all the pictures of our whole trip to Arone and Kristi and Dean and Diane and the show went for almost two hours. You are getting the condensed version. We will put together a Power Point presentation down the road. Marilyn had her video camera so we hope to get a copy of that, perhaps when we get to Australia.