Reply To: Beijing

[JDB]

@MichaelC – yes, you definitely do need to book the Forbidden City tickets. They have limited capacity (something like a mere 80,000) since Covid so the remaining unbooked tickets sell out early in the day. The hotel will organise this for you and will need all your passport numbers and you will need your passport on the day as well – it acts as your entrance ticket. You do also need to book entry to Tiananmen Square nowadays although it’s free, and again passport needed. If you do decide to get a guide or small tour, they will organise this. The FC is absolutely vast so it can absorb these people and most tours seem to start in the morning so it’s less busy in the afternoons. These tours basically go up the central axis where some of the theoretically most important places are, and to be fair they are hugely impressive. If you wander off to the side however, you can get agreeably lost in all sorts of interesting buildings. You exit from the opposite end to where you entered and you will see in front of you Coal Hill with a temple on top – I you have any energy, it’s about the best viewpoint over the city and you can see the whole the the Forbidden City.

To get to the FC from your hotel, you want to walk to the East Gate on Donghuamen Street (no turns involved) and then walk along the wall to the main entrance. Other approaches may be more complicated than they appear on the map!

For the Great Wall, Bespoke Travel (used to be Bespoke Beijing) are brilliant but they have just got too expensive. I was very pleased with Travel China Guide who organised various rail trips and a day trip in Hangzhou (not from Beijing). I dealt with a lady called Ashley Tang and she couldn’t have been more responsive and helpful. They will reply overnight. I’m not sure if you are set up on WeChat (not so easy) but they communicate very quickly via that channel.

https://www.travelchinaguide.com/china_great_wall/

I also used Unique Beijing Tours to go the Summer Palace and they were very good as well. I didn’t know them before but they were the only people happy to do the trip late in the day when we thought it would be less crowded. We will use them again in October. They have Great Wall trips and both firms will customise trips for you.

PS I’m not a fan of Starbucks, but will make an exception for the green tea frappuccinos!