Phil's China Viking Yangtze River Cruise - Blog 9 (rivercruising .co.uk)
 
Well it's the last day on our Viking River Cruise to China and the Yangtze River and we still have some fantastic places to visit. We all meet Bonnie in reception at 8am and take a short drive to Tiananmen Square (the world's largest public
square). Navigating the traffic in Beijing - even at 8am is something to behold. You have to be born here I guess, to understand the driving culture, it's sheer madness.!!
 
Forget Naples, forget Istanbul - these guys are professionals at making bad driving look an art form..!!
 
We arrived at Tiananmen Square and there was a considerable drop in the temperature, after all it was November and apart from the "smog" it was a crisp winter morning.
 
 
As we walked around the square we were suddenly stopped by a barrier and a line of soldiers who we later found out had sealed off part of the square to allow the Beijing people to practice for the 2008 Olympic opening ceremony.
 
Tiananmen Square is huge, I couldn't believe how big it is. In fact we are told it will probably accommodate over 1 million people, and it covers an area of 100 acres.
 
We then walked the full length to Tiananmen Tower which is the entrance to the Forbidden City. As you may guess it was forbidden to all except royalty until the fall of the imperial dynasties in 1911.
 
 
We walked through the maze of palaces, pavilions and courtyards (some 800 buildings are here) and beautiful little gardens. As we walked around we were able to see many pieces of art and historical artifacts from the Ming dynasty.
 
Our guide, Bonnie, escorted us through the city and past the army recruits who were training in the grounds.
 
 
After walking through the Forbidden City we boarded the Bonnie bus for a short drive to take lunch, which by the way was very good today. A couple have been decidedly dodgy - we are in China after all - but today was good..!!
 
A quick happy stop and off to see the Summer Palace in downtown Beijing.
 
As I said earlier, it was a lovely if not cool day, but ideal weather for a day which involved much walking. The Summer Palace is a 700-acre garden and complex of buildings and its Chinese translation means - Garden of Nurtured Beauty". The Summer Palace was rebuilt in 1888 after it was destroyed largely in 1860 by British troops.
 
As we walked through, it was impossible to ignore the way everything seemed to flow so well from Kunmig Lake to the pavilions to all the little paths through the individual gardens. It was a beautiful walk and obviously extremely popular
with the Chinese, due to the large number of families also walking through the Summer Palace. The lake itself (2.2sq km) was dug out by hand. It is entirely man made. I took a picture in 'Sepia' see below to capture the stillness of the lake.
 
 
Running beside the lake is the Painting Walkway, nown by the Chinese as the Covered Walkway. It is 728 metres long and ivided into 273 sections. If you look at my picture you will see the paintings on the beams of the walkway. There are 14,000 of these traditional Chinese aintings along the entire Covered Walkway in the Summer Gardens.
 
 
By mid afternoon, we had walked a fair few miles and I couldn't wait to climb into a nice hot bath before our Bonnie bus arrived at 7pm to take us to the Beijing Opera.
 
Now I can tell you (as a Pianist) I like many forms of music, but nothing prepared me for what I was about to hear. I say hear because the costumes and the makeup were simply amazing - but the sound......!!
 
Unfortunately, I was seated at a table on the front row, in full view of everyone. Then she opened her mouth and that was it....i got the giggles,in fact I was about to explode and everyone in the room knew and many others must have felt the
same because it became infectious. However in true British style, I did the honourable thing and made my excuse and left the room - QUICK!!
 
If you have ever heard a cats chorus, then it sounded in parts just like that. I was as though she was in pain. I could not sit there and be rude by laughing because this is their culture and the Chinese were fantastic hosts. But is was just not for me and I made my apologies. The meal though was excellent and again the service was superb.
 
Well that was that - all that was left now was to head back to the hotel bar where I jumped on the piano and entertained the guests with a couple of numbers, before heading off to bed and happy thoughts of meeting up with my wife Janine who'm I have not seen for almost 2 weeks.
 
I have to take my hat off the the team at Viking River Cruises, Albert & Dave, Debbie and Catherine (hope your little boy is doing fine) by congratulating them on an excellent product. Let me tell you, I carried my suitcase to check in at Heathrow
at the start of the holiday and did not touch it again (not once) until check in at Beijing airport on the return home 12 days later.
 
All meals, admission to attractions, transfers, drinks at all tour lunches/dinners outside of the hotel & ship are included in this holiday. In fact we never checked in at any airports in China - Viking do all that for you, we just left the tour bus and
walked into the airports where our guide Bonnie gave each person their boarding cards. We then simply walked straight through security and to the departure gate and straight onto the flight..!! Viking make it so easy and stress free.
 
 
In closing I would like to leave you with this quote, "There are two outstanding features to a Viking River cruise to China. One is; the outstanding level of service and attention to detail given to the guests and the Second is; the fact that unlike
other holidays, you count down the days to coming home - but on  Viking River Cruise holiday to China, you look forward to the next new adventure each day brings becuase it just keeps on getting better!"
 
I would highly recomend you take the trip in the order I did and not the other way round - but that is a personal opinion.
 
If you would like information on this or any other Viking River Cruise holiday, please visit. www.rivercruising.co.uk or drop me an email at phil@savensail.com
 
I hope you have enjoyed my blog and thank you for taking the trouble to follow my journey through China.
 
Phil