The Great Wall of China was built between the 5th century AD and the 16th century in order to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire from Xiongnu attacks. This is something on a mammoth scale. The height of the wall at any one point is not that impressive, but it's the fact that the wall ran for thousands of kilometers that is staggering.
The Great Wall runs for about 6,400 km from Shanhaiguan in the east to Lop Nur in the west, along an arc roughly along the southern edge of Inner Mongolia. A archaeological survey has found that entire Great Wall, with all of its branches, stretches for about 9000 km. At its peak, the Ming Wall was guarded by more than one million men. It has been estimated that between 2 to 3 million Chinese died as part of the centuries-long project of building the wall.
One of the things that really puts me off "tours" is that one is herded into "buying opportunity" venues against one's will, and this was certainly what Holland America Line's tour did to us. We booked to see the Great Wall of China, we spent 8 hours travelling from the ship to the wall and back (we obviously knew this in advance), 1 hour at the Ming Tombs, 1.5 hours having lunch at at a "ceramic factory" where we were given sales talks on said ceramics) which left only 1.5 hours to see the wall. Chris & I felt angry and exploited by this, Holland America Line did not seem to care. The photos above are the lunch in the ceramic factory, and a poster on the wall of the factory showing presumably satisfied punters.
Eventually we got to the Great Wall of China - we would have liked more than the allocated 90 minutes, but there you are! The wall is impressive as it winds up hill and down, stretching into the distance. And if you do manage to climb to the top of one secton, then there is another continuing into the distance once more.
This gives a good idea as to how steep a steep section is. It certainly separated the sheep from the goats, so as to speak. By the time one got well up the wall, the number of fellow tourists declined dramatically
The views were magnificent all around. Every so often one of the old watch towers was used by locals to sell souveniers.
We had the obligatory photo taken at the top of this section - that is the wall winding around the hillside behind us. Going down was a bit trickier for Chris. It was very steep, and the steps were not of a uniform size.
It is really eerie the way the wall twists and turns around the hills. It was successful in keeping out the barbarians for around 1000 years, but eventually the hordes from the north got through and sacked Beijing.
You can see that towards the top there were fewer people around. Although the day was sunny, it was quite cool in April. I don't think I would have liked to have been a Chinese soldier station on the wall in winter.
And 90 minutes later it was down to the bottom and back to the bus, to return to the Volendam via the Ming Tombs