Friday
The alarmwas set for 05:00 as we had to be at Hong Kong airport for 06:00, in time for our 09:00 flight to Beijing. Check in was smooth and before we knew it we were spending our last Hong Kong dollars on a coffee each and heading to the departure gate, where we met up with our Tour Manager, Mary, and the rest of our group who had flown in from London overnight.
One reason that we love travelling with Great Rail Journeys is because despite us usually being very independent travellers, we do enjoy having the services of a tour manager to follow on these long trips in non western countries. Whilst we had thoroughly enjoyed our time in Hong Kong, it’s exhausting travelling on our own in a foreign country with limited time. We find having a tour manager to follow and transport us from place to place offers us the right mix of being adventurous and seeing new places, yet still being able to relax and rewind.
Another reason we enjoy GRJ is that they allow us to be somewhat flexible in our holiday approach. For example, the main group flight from London to Beijing had a layover in HK; but we thought it would be a shame to pass HK without seeing it, so GRJ organised an extension for us. We weren’t the only couple to do this and another 2 couples are doing HK at the end of our main trip too.
Our flight from Hong Kong to Beijing was around 3 hours in length and so by lunchtime, we had landed, retrieved our cases, successfully passed through immigration with our visas (hurrah!), met our group & our Beijing local guide, Lily, and were on our coach to the hotel.
We were staying at the Novotel Peace Hotel which was pretty central, so after check in we decided to have a little wander to acclimatise. We found a local supermarket and stocked up on room snacks and local beer! We were noticing that there seems to be a lack of bars etc – the Chinese don’t drink like us Brits!
Dinner was included and we enjoyed the buffet which served a selection of Chinese and western cuisine, whilst getting to know some of our fellow group members before having an early night- our previous travelling days along with late nights were catching up on us and we had an early start tomorrow.
Saturday
Our alarm was set for 06:00 – we had a full day ahead! Beijing is huge but also extremely densely populated. Traffic is a huge problem and it was a Chinese Holiday so the bad traffic was even worse! Lily suggested we meet earlier than scheduled to enable us to reach the Temple of Heaven before the mass crowds. By doing this we got to The Temple of Heaven early enough to see the groups of seniors partaking in Tai Chi in the Park.
The weather was glorious – which made our first glimpse of the magnificent UNESCO site just breathtaking. It really is a beautiful sight and we thoroughly enjoyed our time there.
Next stop was Tiananmen Square which is the largest city square in the world and Lily and Mary did a wonderful job of guiding our group of 30 through seamlessly, despite huge numbers of tourists!
We walked though from Tiananmen Square to the Forbidden City- which once was home exclusively to the emperor, concubines and staff for over 600 years. We knew it would be large but it’s not until you are there and navigating through on foot, that you get a feel for how large!
We absolutely loved our tour of the places and courtyards etc- and again, it was amazing how Mary and Lily kept the group together- I don’t think I’ve been anywhere so crowded in my life. Lily provided us with ear pieces which allowed us to hear her commentary and instructions- a vital piece of equipment I’d say!
We were taken to lunch at a local restaurant which was delicious, before going to a tea shop for a demonstration of various teas local to Beijing which was really enjoyable.
The afternoon was spent visiting The Summer Palace, which is a collection of lovely courtyards and gardens along with a large man made lake, which we travelled across on an amazing Dragon Boat, similar to how the emperor would have travelled many years ago.
This evening we had booked an additional excursion to a sample evening of the Beijing Opera. The hour long show consisted of 3 short operas, and gave a great insight into the art. We found the evening very interesting and despite musically not being to our taste, it was brilliant to see the costumes, traditional music and instruments, movement and of course the singing!
Sunday
Sunday dawned with another very early start; today we were off to The Great Wall of China and I was so excited that I barely slept as I was petrified of missing our alarm!
The weather could not have been any better and during the hour and a half coach journey to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall you could almost smell the excitement and anticipation on the coach.
The Mutianyu section is a little further away from Beijing that other sections and as such is much quieter! That along with our early start meant that once again, we were joined by only a few others.
We took a cable car up to the wall and when we took our first steps out onto the wall, I became so overwhelmed that I burst into tears! It is absolutely phenomenally spectacular. No matter how many pictures you look at before you travel, nothing will ever come close to how it feels to be on that wall! And it’s not just the wall and the background of how it was built etc ; it’s built in such a spectacular mountainous area- the view is worth seeing on its own!
We had two hours of free time on the wall which was great as I was so overcome it took me nearly 20 mins just to take a picture!
After our visit we were whisked to a local restaurant for a fabulous lunch. Everyone was in high spirits having seen one of the 7 wonders of the world, and the food was wonderful.
Next stop was a workshop that made wonderful copper ornaments and vases which were hand decorated using filigree. We purchased a pretty Christmas decoration but if money were no object we’d have brought at least 2 or 3 vases.
We made our way back to Beijing, stopping for a photo at The Birds Nest Olympic stadium for a picture, before arriving in Beijing’s Old town – known locally as the Hutongs. Lily had arranged for us to take a rickshaw ride around the oldest streets of Beijing which was enjoyable, and fascinating to see the grey concrete buildings – the colour grey was only allowed to be used by he commoners.
We also were allowed to visit a traditional Hutong which was fascinating. I loved the courtyard with the red lanterns hanging over head.
We had an hour at the hotel before we were taken out for a traditional Peiking Duck meal in a 5 star restaurant. The whole meal was delicious – the duck slightly different to how we have it in the UK as the skin was not so crispy. But it was delicious non the less and as authentic as you can get! Lily told us these ducks are cooked for an hour in huge ovens using wood from fruit trees so the skin doesn’t get blackened.
We returned to the hotel around 9pm and so we wandered down to Wungfalung Street food market which was about 10 mins walk from our hotel. I had read that this was the place to try more “unusual” foods and had quite imagined that I may use this opportunity to try something local. The stalls sell things like Scorpion kebabs and spider kebabs – in my head I thought no problem, I’ll give that a go! In reality I very quickly changed my mind! We loved our walk through the market and at night the lights were on and there was a great atmosphere. The smells were interesting and intense and not always mouth watering! Check out our (sneaky!) video of some of the sights we saw! 🤢 including Keith’s face when he saw a squashed lizard type creature on a kebab! 😂 I doubt we will ever see anything like it again – although some of our group are saying they saw similar scenes in Vietnam and Cambodia. It really was a fascinating wander – a real eye opener/tummy turner!
Our time in Beijing had come to an end- it was time to go and pack our cases – first thing tomorrow we are transferring to Beijing Railway station for our high speed train to Xi’an.
What a fabulous, jam packed introduction to China, and as Mary said when we said bye to Lily, we could not have asked for a better guide to show us around, Lily was a ray of sunshine and knew her stuff!
Until next time.
Lx
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The city is also home to a very old historic pub, called The Haunch of Venison which is well worth a visit. It’s said that Eisenhower and Churchill met here to discuss the planning of the D Day landings in 1944. The pubs dates back over 700 years which is just amazing. We really enjoyed our drink here and had a nice chat with a couple of local ladies who were interesting and knowledgeable about the history of the pub.
During our walk back to Ruby, who was parked on the outskirts, we stopped at another lovely pub called The Mill- which aptly looked out over the water mill. The weather was great so we enjoyed a quick “one for the road”.
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We enjoyed lamb steaks and veg and potatoes for dinner and some more of that lovely local ice cream. We received another very warm welcome at the club site- it’s a great place to stay.
It was a short walk down to the village. As soon as we arrived Keith squealed in excitement- “this is where they filmed War Horse”!
He is such a film fan, he couldn’t believe he’d forgotten this was where they filmed it! It is just beautiful at Castle Combe. The houses are typically British, and there are two old pubs. A river and a pretty stream cross the village at the end. It’s just gorgeous.
There is a 5 mile AA walk that takes int he village but we gave this a miss as we had or journey back to Norfolk to consider.
The heavens opened – and they stayed open ALL DAY! So we made no rush to leave, enjoying a fry up and some crumpets for breakfast and gallons of tea.
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Stourhead Estate is absolutely breathtaking- and that’s coming from us in the depths of winter on a wet and wild day! Seriously beautiful, it’s a huge landscapes garden estate, with a lovely walk of about 3 miles in length weaving up and round past countless different trees and bushes. Every now and again you get a glimpse of the lake, which is the head of the river Stour that has been dammed off into a landscaped lake. There are picture perfect bridges, a pantheon, a grotto, a waterwheel. It’s just fabulous and despite the cold wet and frankly miserable weather, it was a holiday highlight. We met a NT volunteer in the Pantheon who showed us an original statue of Augusta, and is over 2000 years old.
He said he thought Stourhead was the best garden in UK and we wholeheartedly agree.
Not impressed but of course we couldn’t find anyone to inform. Keith went to the loo and came back pale- instead of urinals it was a tile wall to pee up! 🤢 it also was clear by now that it wasn’t a holiday site it was more of a “permanent site” – all the other caravans had workmen in trade vans on.
Thursday arrived and thank goodness, there was no rain! Infact it was a picture perfect winters day, and the sun actually held a bit of warmth. We packed up, I went to inform the site that we would be leaving and highlighted our concerns. Not that the manager seemed at all bothered.
Thankfully there was a perfectly located coffee shop with a table right at the peak of the view for us to grab a coffee and gather our thoughts. We decided what made the view quite so special was the combination of the view of the countryside behind the old fashioned houses, cobbled street and NO cars!
We were also lucky that the light was absolutely perfect- however when we visited later on it had clouded over and was still magical.
We had a packed lunch on the pretty park terrace which had similarly great views before a pint on the terrace at the Mitre Inn. One last look at our special view on Gold Hill before heading back to Ruby.
We’d managed to book onto a site on the outskirts of Salisbury, Coombe Caravan Park for the next two nights. Fingers crossed for a better time here!
walks and found an interesting one just down the road beyond Dereham, at North Elmham.
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Whilst this is a bridle way, the path lends itself more to walking as it’s grassy (and in some parts muddy).
County School was built in 1873 but only survived as a school for 21 years, before being turned into a Naval College and then a Barnardos House, before sadly being demolished. You can read more 
These never fail to put a smile on my face, so by the time we were back at Ruby the Campervan, we were feeling refreshed and revitalised. We enjoyed lunch and a cuppa before heading home.
