On the day I visited the Great Wall outside Beijing the smog was replaced by regular, wet, mist. Being with a tour group there was no opportunity to return so I had to make the most of it.
Most of what you see of the Great Wall has been restored. In today's photo, an un-restored, derelict, section of the wall can be traced along the ridge of the hill and disappearing into the mist. It was clearly no easy task to build the wall and no easy stroll to patrol it either.
While here, I recalled an experience I had had at the Piz Gloria restaurant in switzerland a few years earlier. We'd taken the cable car up with the intent of hiking back down the mountain but when we arrived at the top, the mountain was shrouded in low cloud. We decided to wait for the cloud to burn off.
While we were waiting, another cable car arrived with a group of Japanese tourists obviously on a tour. Like myself at the Great Wall, this was their time at the top of the mountain. And so they all set about taking photos of the white mist against a white snow background. Minutes later they were all herded back into the cable car and whisked down the mountain, presumably to their waiting tour bus and their next experience of switzerland. At least Kuoni weren't that brutal in their scheduling – we had ample time to explore at each location.
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