Closing with the spectacular

There's so much history in the Great Wall(s) of China. It looks beautiful and pristine in this photo - but that is only because of restoration work in the late 1980s. Before that, the Ming Emperors built the best known sections in the 14th to 17th centuries and, before that, around 220 BC, the first Qin Emperor, Shi Huangdi, who was the first to unite China, made it his mission to join up the myriad of sections of walls which already existed to provide protection against the warring nomads from the North.

Mao had a saying "he who has not been to the Great Wall is not a true man"! That's the message inscribed on this stele - and everyone wants to have a photo for their archive! Although bits of it are steep, Katie (who hopes Zhangjiajie cured her vertigo) was very brave - here she is and here we are with our guide, Allen.

It was exhilerating and I loved the drive up from Beijing, to the wall, to the Ming Tombs and to the summertime mountain retreat for the Qing Emperors. The latter being north of the Great Wall. The farmland has no industrial scale management. It's all small-holdings. They grow fruit and beans and greens. In one village there was a truly medieval sight. An elderly man hauling a rope, which dragged a plough, which his elderly wife was holding steady to turn the earth and prepare the field. Timeless.

Although the tomb of the first Ming Emperor is in Nanjing, most of the others are in a cluster, north of Beijing. As in Nanjing, there are huge matched statues of animals lining the "spirit way" and the site for the tomb was chosen on the principles of feng shui. There are two pretty little "silk burning stoves", with yellow tiling, in the first courtyard and the main hall is famous for being made out of nanmu, a precious wood, which smells gorgeous and keeps the insects away! The little wooden bat, below, is auspicious ...

The first tomb here belongs to Zhu Di, the Yongle Emperor. Amongst other things, he is responsible for "Yongle Canon", the world's first encyclopaedia, completed by 2,000 scholars in 1408. And he funded Zheng He's explorations and adventures, which is why the little museum includes a model of his ship and a lovely account of a giraffe being tended as a tribute to the Emperor.

North of the Great Wall - and a great place to be the last we visit - is Chengde. It's the mountain retreat for the Qing emperors - a place to go when Beijing gets too hot and steamy. It's a gorgeous place, with people-sized palaces and temples all set within a mini Great Wall of China. It's also the first place we have seen furnished. It may not all be historically accurate - but it does give you something of a feel for what it would have been like. One of the first curiosities we see is the hall with two floors and no staircase. To get "upstairs", you need to scramble up the rocks outside and onto the veranda!

There's a small but beautiful collection of porcelain and you can see the Empress' carriage. The colourful flowers below are painted enamel and so delicate. The pictures below - if I've remembered right - are two of the great Qing emperors who lived and loved at Chengde. It's worth zooming in on the frieze below, which shows you what a day's hunting in that part of the world might look like!

The women of the court came too - this is the Empress' carriage and the charming little pavilion on the island in the photo below was built by Quianlong for his most favourite concubine.

There are also 8 glorious outer temples in Chengde. This one - the Putuo Zongcheng Temple - was modelled after the Potala Palace in Tibet, where the Dalai Lama lives. It was where the Emperor used to gather meetings of envoys from all the minority peoples across the empire and it was designed to make them feel at home and welcome.

China never ceases to amaze. The politics are complicated; one of our guides said that young people with strong political voices usually move away. For those who stay, a job in the government is the number one aspiration. For visitors, its a place where people are warm and welcoming. Almost no-one speaks English but everyone has the tech to get round that and everyone had the patience and courtesy to help. The infrastructure is brilliant, roads, trains, tubes - all smooth and fast and so clean and tidy. And it's very affordable still! Time has flown by and I feel sad to be leaving so soon. China is glorious and exhilerating - and I count my blessings to have travelled alongside the wise and wonderful Katie. I come home energised and happy and feeling so very lucky.