On our last trip in Beijing before flying out to the Shandong province and Jinan we visited a Cloisonne factory and watched the ancient art of making beautiful glazed enamelware pottery by hand, climbed the Great Wall at Badaling and made a brief stop at the site of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
While our entire stay in Beijing has been tremendous, visiting the Great Wall and climbing along a portion of this 2,000 year-old stone fortress was the most moving. First constructed in 221 BC to protect the Qing Dynasty from the Mongolians to the north, the wall was only moderately successful in keeping invading armies at bay.
At Badaling, one of a handful of places along the Great Wall open to the public, a quick gondola ride takes you up to an opening along the high mountain pass and the wall itself. From there you can see extensive stretches of the wall as it snakes along the high mountain top ridges of the surrounding mountains. Although this particular section was built much later (around the 1300's), the experience of visiting this incredible feat of human engineering isn't diminished by much.
And for me, hiking along the Great Wall with Ethan and Nancy knowing that our family would soon grow by one more is a Father's Day I will never forget.
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