According to our guide, the Great Wall of China is the Number One tourist attraction in this country … and I believe it. After the heat and the pressing crowds of Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, we all were a bit put off at the thought of coping with more and even bigger crowds….
If you’re fortunate enough to visit Beijing, by all means plan to see the Forbidden City, home to 14 Ming emperors and 10 more from the Qing Dynasty. Like Tiananmen Square, it’s big, almost 180 acres in all. That means there will be a great deal of walking. And it’s not all flat. There are…
The Chinese understand rail and how trains can move people – a lot of people – quickly and efficiently. We arrived in Beijing at a grand old rail station with some 30 trains appearing on the constantly-changing departure board, all scheduled to depart at varying times in just the next 120 minutes. First order of…
Notes and impressions from my recent rail journey — from London to Germany, Russia, Siberia, Mongolia on to China — now continues. Sorry for the interruption. ———————————————————————————- Mongolia has been another great surprise. Ulan Bator is a modern city, with apartment buildings, parks, cultural activities, and – at least as far as we could tell…