When they said Great Wall, they were not kidding--it is an amazing feat. The only other civilization that could have pulled this off were the Romans (who spent a good deal of time during the reign of Claudius onwards, peaking with Hadrian, building walls and aqueducts and temples that were on a grand scale that has withstood the test of time).
So here we are, on the wall itself. On some level it was hard to believe that I was there, it is such an iconic monument. Climbing on it brought me quickly back to reality. There is a lot of up and down in the wall. They did not go for a wall that was more or less flat and build down to the ground. No way. This is in the hills and it reflects those hills almost exactly in it's ascents and descents. The wall near Beijing was built during the Ming Dynasty (1504 for this section), and it was restored and made open to the public in the 1950's. Interesting that during the Cultural Revolution Richard Nixon came to this section of the wall. He represented capitalism and the wall represented both tradition and culture, everything that Mao's regimen was against.
In modern China, there is a lot of interest in the past, and the day we were there the most visited section of the wall at Badaling had thousands of domestic tourists, people whose ancestors built this structure so enormous that it can be seen from space. I was huffing and puffing just to get to a few guard towers, but there were lots of people enjoying picnics on this magnificent ancient accomplishment.
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