Friday, 17 May 2013

The Great Wall


Here I am at The Great Wall of China, the last of the 4 Seven New Wonders Of The World that I am visiting on this trip. The first thing to note is that The Great Wall isn't actually one really long wall, instead it is many quite long walls used to link up natural defences like impassable mountainsides.

I visited the Mutianyu part which is over 3,000 metres long and has 26 watchtowers (You can spot some of them in the photo). It was a truly impressive sight and there were lots of steps as the wall rose and fell with the hillside. They were those tiny types of steps that feel like you are doing lots of small footsteps in quick succession, so quite tiring!

Despite all the effort that went into building it though, it actually became pretty useless once invaders to China decided to come from the sea and even more useless once planes were invented. Funnily enough, if it wasn't for tourism it might not even exist like it does today and even now there are stretches that have totally collapsed and piles that are still illegally plundered for building materials!

Did You Know?: The Wall being visible from space is a myth and not true. It might be long but it's simply not wide enough!


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