Welcome to the Great Wall of China, a cultural site that not only lives up to its hype, but in my opinion, far exceeds it. The Wall is over a thousand miles long, and is the only manmade object that was visible to astronauts

It doesn't look so tall, does it? This is the view from the start of the (modern) stone bridge that leads to the base tower. We saw only a small section of the wall, at a spot that is easily accessible to tourists. You

This is not the droid you're looking for. Move along. The fortified structure seen on the hill here is NOT part of the climb, but rather was off toward the southwest, on another section. The gardens at the base were part of a small

The bridge in the foreground is modern, built for tourist access but tastefully matching the architecture of the Great Wall itself. The towers you can see are only part of the climb; it's difficult to really understand the scale of this

The buildings shown here were a military logistics center that has been restored as a museum, souvenir shop, and cafeteria. Even in the Middle Ages, military units needed food, water, equipment repairs, and other non-combat services, and this logistics center

This shot is a slightly different angle on the logistics center. The two shots of the center were taken from the bridge seen in previous shots. As you face the bridge and the Wall behind it, the military logistics center is below and

We could not have asked for a more beautiful day to see the Great Wall. The temperature was about 22 C (70 F), humidity low, and partly cloudy. There was just a slight haze over the mountains in the distance, as you can see here.

Here we are almost across the access bridge, and looking back toward the southeast over the logistics center. I loved the dappled light from the scattered clouds as the shadows danced over the mountains!

Snaking off into the distance is another section of the Great Wall that is accessible from a different point. I didn't go on that section due to lack of time.

Seen from partway up the climb to the first tower, this view looks back over the access point and the tourist-access bridge. The flat section close to the foreground is not the tourist bridge but rather the first section of Wall; the