Xi’an the ancient capital of China and gateway to the old Silk Road

Beijing station is like an airport. Mostly in Chinese obviously but directions were clear enough because here we are!

The Train rocketed along at 300 Km per hour. Wow!  

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.  Technology - love it!. 
As I wrote (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 which were dotted around the city wall at the perimeter of the inner city. 

We’re staying in the inner city, the old city, inside the massive old City Wall which was built in the C14th during the Ming Dynasty and extends for 14km around the inner city. The Wall gives marvellous views over the old and new 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.

We entered at the East Gate, there is no drive through for traffic. These archways were made a long time afterwards to handle the huge volume of traffic criss-crossing the city. 

Lots of ornate wood carving after the style of the Forbidden City.

Down in the square people were dancing and dance groups performing.

We stumbled upon people lining up for The City Wall Bike Race.  lots of fun and laughter.

I was keen to visit Moslem Street and the old mosque so that was our next destination.