Published on Jan, 2018
First of all I was nicely surprised that a day before I was contacted by the organizers and advised the precise time of pick-up from my hotel. Our guide Aaron arrived just in time.We picked 3 more people and started our trip. I suppose that a lot depends exactly on the guide and traffic situation. In our case the guide was speaking very good English, so no communication problems appeared. First we went to the Ming Tomb, then to Jade factory, where we had lunch. The factory is by the way an interesting place. Visiting some such shopping stops is always an integral part of each tour, so take it or leave it. After the lunch we moved to the Wall. Also just to avoid any misunderstanding: you HAVE TO PAY for the cable car. It is optional in the sense that you can spend 40min by climbing and see nothing or just to pay 140 ¥ and enjoy the wall for 1.5h. As it was deadly cold and windy at the wall this time was more than enough. Otherwise we would fall totally frozen. After visiting the wall we were brought to the tea ceremony and were given 6 different teas to taste. Again, yes, it is marketing but the teas nevertheless are amazingly tasty. Nobody will pressure you to buy anything so just relax and enjoy some hot tea after a walk. May be the only drawback I personally see in my tour (again I mean just my experience and not the overall feature) is that due to traffic we were asked whether it is ok if we were dropped off at the center and taken to the hotel by taxi. And yehhh..we had to pay additional 30¥ for the taxi. So, always be prepared for some extra charges. But the excursion was very good!!
