Xian's Ancient City Wall

After the Royal Dinner, we were too excited and tired to sleep! Yet, we had to sleep for a while as we had a packed day coming up and we were also leaving this wonderful city to go back home.

After a simple breakfast of toast and porridge, we were taken to see the Ancient City wall. This was something we saw as soon as we alighted the train on Day 1 and our tour guide,Kelly, said that we would be walking over the perimeter of the walls and it had some breath taking views....

This wall was built for defense purpose and is one of the most stunning and impressive walls to be built. It somehow reminded e of the Great Wall of China, only this looked a little smaller in length.

This wall is over 600 years old and is really well preserved.There are four gates in the North, South ,East and West ends and each gate has an Archery tower, Drawbridge tower and a main tower for the entrance to the City.

As you can see in the pics, it was a very cloudy day.But that did not dampen our spirit...

Now let's take a tour ...

At the entrance....

Now to get on top,one has to climb a long fleet of stairs that you can see next to that car!!!

The 11 meter roadway on top of the wall was built for the soldiers to move rapidly from one tower to another in case they were attached !

And it is in this roadway that we can walk, cycle , take a battery operated car ride.We took a car ride for a short period since MIL would not be able to walk and Lil Angel was still in a sleepy mood.

The counter to get tickets for the tour of the wall in a battery car near one of the gates....

Once Lil Angel fell asleep, we took a bicycle for hire and hubby and myself took a long ride on the wall.

One of the bells near the tower...

The towers now house exhibits and also has paintings and souvenirs for sale...

Refreshment stands are present all through the route and it was a welcome sight!We parked our cycles and enjoyed a coffee and an ice cream..

The ancient architecture meet the new ones...

View from the wall...

Lil Angel had woken up by the time we returned from our cycling trip and happily posed for the pics...A view of the old city within the walls...

The canon used in those days....

We wanted to take in the beauty of the place for a little longer, but Kelly, our tour guide, did not think so! She actually had a point when she said we would be late for the next important stop - The Terracotta Warrior site! 

The moment we heard that name, we sped to our bus and waited with excitement till we reached the destination that I had dreams of visiting at least once in my lifetime!...