This was the most exhausting of all of my days in China, but also one of the most memorable!

We signed up for a tour and luckily we were the only ones! It was just us and our tour guide, Candy. She knew so much about The Great Wall and its history!

We chose to go to Simatai because the section of the wall nearest to Beijing, Badaling, is supposed to be really crowded, really touristy and mostly rebuilt. We wanted to see The Wall without the crowds and unrestored.

Simatai is about a two hour drive from Beijing and about halfway into the drive you start to feel like youre in the countryside. It’s very pretty!

We parked at the foot of a large hill and couldnt really see anything. But after about a half hour of climbing, there it was! The pictures don’t really show how huge and beautiful the Wall is.

There weren’t any people on the wall that we could see. It was like we had it all to ourselves! It was a big surprise when in one of the guard towers in the above picture, there was a woman selling t-shirts and water!  A few minutes after we arrived, there was a small group from Germany and a guy from Brasil.

The hiking was a little hard, we all were sweaty and tired at the end, but it was totally worth it! I would go back in a second!

After we climbed down the mountain, there was a little village at the bottom.

And it had several cannons, but most importantly at that time…

It had a great restaurant! We all ate a LOT. And it was tasty!