25 Places to visit before you die: No. 1 Great Wall of China

It's hardly surprising that one of the great wonders of the world, the Great Wall of China, should be on afterabc's list of 25 places to visit before you die.  Whilst some of our other entries may be debatable, but it seems certain that almost every list of must visits would include the Great Wall of China.

The Great Wall is a monument to human endeavour that since the 6th century, when work on the wall first started, continues to capture the imagination.

I was fortunate to visit the Wall some years ago, I had wanted to travel to the Wall since my childhood, I vividly remember as an innocent 10 year old being told that you could see the Great Wall from the moon, I found it rather comforting that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin would be seeing something so old when venturing into space. It now seems that such is an exaggeration, disappointing for our imagination, but in reality, the Great Wall is a marvel regardless of if an alien has to visit earth to see perhaps the greatest of man's monuments. (The Egyptians would perhaps disagree with such a description).

I remember the wondrous nature of seeing the Wall for the first time; it is difficult to describe the magnificence and enormity of this wonderful structure. 

I travelled to China in the late spring early summer when I believe the Wall is at its best, with beautiful flowers and the ever changing colours of the leaves framing the view.

Here are a few facts:-

The Great Wall also referred to as the Long Wall of 10,000 is a series of stone and earthen fortifications that stretches from Shanhaiguan in the east to Lop Nur in the west.

The Great Wall was built to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire, which seems ironic as today it is one of the most visited places in the world with approximately1.2 million tourists visiting each year.

One of the most famous sections of the Wall was built between 220-206 BC by the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. Today, little of that part of the Wall remains and the majority of the existing Wall was built during the Ming Dynasty.

The original Wall was about 3,750 miles, let us take a moment to put that into perspective, the length of the U.K. is about is about 600 miles. Seoul, Korea to Busan is 230 miles - incredible!

Unfortunately only about 1,000 miles of the Wall remains today, let's do a quick calculation, if you are like me and walk at about 3 miles per hour a walk along the entire Wall would take about 1 year. Make sure you wear sensible shoes!

The human cost of construction was incredible, it is believed that over 3 million workers including peasants, prisoners and soldiers were involved in building the Wall and there were approximately 1 million fatalities from injuries, starvation and dehydration; incomprehensible to 21st century thinking.

Let me emphasise how wonderful my trip to China was and seeing the Great Wall was even more exciting than I could ever have imagined.

Although Chinese is not a language that can easily be picked up from a little phrase book, the Chinese people are very welcoming and friendly and go out of their way to help foreigners.

Go on go for it, book your trip to China now and experience this masterpiece firsthand.

Bon Voyage.

January 7, 2010  |  Article Posted By: afterabc admin , London
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