The tour started with the Mutianyu Great Wall: it was the best part of this tour (maximum rating here). It was really wonderful. Our guide, Sarah, came with us with the cable car and provided explanations in a good English. She was really good and nice during the whole tour, and she is also well prepared (Sarah, as a guide, is absolutely recommended. I had her also in another tour, much better than this one).
After that we went to the Ming Tombs. Honestly I expected something better. All the tombs, except 2, are closed. We had to choose one of the 2, and maybe our choice was not the best. We visited the one belonging to the first emperor (in the main site) but there was actually not too much to see, apart of a kind of museum: one big room only, without anything special to see inside; just some descriptions of part of the history of the Ming’s dynasty. No tombs were really visible; it was quite a short visit. Definitely under expectations! This part of the tour was about 1 hour only, and just before lunch. I would suggest to the tour organizer to extend this part of the tour to both tombs (even paying a bit more) and have lunch later. Maybe the other tomb is better than this one and anyway according to the tour, the time visit had to be 2 hours for the Ming tombs, and not only 1.
Bird's nest and water cube visit, organized in this way, is absolutely useless. The bus stops 5 minutes and you don't have time even to visit it from outside (I mean you cannot walk there). There is just a place to see them from one position only, and not very near (half stadium was also covered by the cube structure). I cannot even say to my friends that I've seen the stadium...
Finally we went to the Tea market and tasted some good Tea, having also some explanations of the processes to produce and prepare the Tea.
My final opinion is to choose for half tour, visiting only the Mutianyu great wall and maybe the Tea market, and jump completely the Ming tombs and the Stadium: the afternoon was just wasted time.
Hope it helps!
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[3 of 5 Stars!]
