 |
| Beijing station is like an airport. Mostly in Chinese obviously but directions were clear enough |
 |
| Our train rocketed along up to 330 Km per hour! |
Just a quick note on getting to Xi'an from Beijing. We were on the very fast train. It was smooth and it was impossible to tell how fast we were travelling - other than by reading the digit sign. Technology - love it!.
As I write (8 May), we were sipping on Italian bubbles and eating a delicious assortment of fruit - cherries, sweet cumquats (locally called sugar oranges) and strawberries compliments of the hotel management for Lindsay’s birthday. How lovely is that!
 |
| One of the guard towers on the city wall at the perimeter of the inner city. |
We are staying in the inner city, the old city, inside the massive old City Wall which was built in C14th during the Ming Dynasty and extends for 14km around the inner city. The Wall gives marvellous views over the old and newer parts of Xi’an. We walked a relatively short distance along the wall from the East Gate but it was enough to get a good idea of its structure and how it defended the city. There were false - or rather anti-entrances from which any undesirable could be fired upon.
The architecture is, like the Forbidden City, quite grand and arresting with guard towers/defence posts every 100m. We had thought to hire bikes and ride around it but they don’t hire to people over 65! And the ‘golf buggy’ option only goes between South and East Gates. Not to worry, we were happy with what we had seen.
 |
| The East Gate. These archways were made long afterwards to handle the huge volume of traffic criss-crossing the city. |
 |
| Lots of ornate woodcarving after the style of the Forbidden City. |
 |
| Down in the square people were dancing and groups were performing. |
 |
| People lining up with their bikes for The City Wall Bike Race - lots of laughter. |
I was keen to visit Muslem Street and the old mosque so that was our next destination.
No comments:
Post a Comment