The travel diaries: China - mountains and cities

At last, the final post about my month in China.

Before leaving Beijing, there were two missing sights from my bucket list: the Great Wall of China and the Forbidden City.

The Great Wall of China

Prior to even arriving in the country, months before actually, I found out online that camping at the awall could organised (although not completely legal). A little research and some persuasion, we managed to organise a party of 12 people and 3 dogs and set off to climb and camp at the Wall.


We hired a driver to take us to the nearest village for lunch, Jinshanling, and after to the nearest access point to start climbing.



And so it began, our adventure at the Great Wall.






Since we wanted to camp, we accessed the Wall from Hebei, a section that is basically abandoned and requires some caution as you are walking on ruins. Did stop us? No way!!



We caught a little rain as we went up, but nothing to worry.










Sorry for the amount of pictures, but believe me when I say I did make a selection and I have a lot more saved to look at whenever I miss the Wall.





The picture above was taken at sunrise. I don't sleep well in new places and sleeping on top of rocks wasn't really comfortable, so I woke up with the first rays of light.


Everything was magical, but the sunrise had something extra special.


The same views we had at sunset, now bathed in light of midday.

And then we went home. Although completely exhausted, we still went out to have dinner that night:

  

The Forbidden City

The last sight to tick off the bucket list and the perfect way to end my trip.


The time I left the house to visit both Chairman Mao's Mausoleum and the FC.




I didn't get to the Mausoleum, the queue was huge and I had to make a choice: dead body or Forbidden City.
I picked the City.






Beautiful, right?







A water clock, Clepsydra.





Lunch afterwards.

It was a ride, a long and emotional ride and I returned to Lisbon a different person. I saw so many cities and sights and can safely say this was the trip of a lifetime.

China, you were a blast and I can't wait to see you again! ❤️🇨🇳
XOXO,

M

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