When we originally booked our “around the world” cruise, some of the great perks it included were several complimentary events. Some of those got left behind when almost the entire first half of the trip was cancelled, but we have been hosted to a wonderful evening of cocktails, dinner, and a traditional Thai puppet show in Bangkok, and now a day trip to have lunch and tour the Great Wall of China.

We arrived at port in Tianjin, a critical Chinese trade artery and the gateway to Beijing, 120 kilometers way. Our destination was the Great Wall of China at Badaling, 43 miles more past Beijing. On what was a beautiful day for China, with a blueless sky and the apricot trees in full bloom over the hazy mountains, we had lunch under the crumbling towers and walls of an unrestored part of the wall. Then a little farther, we reached the best-known section at Badaling, which was rebuilt in the late 1950s and attracts thousands of national and foreign tourists each day.

The beginning of the Great Wall can be traced to the third century B.C., and was originally conceived as a means of preventing incursions from barbarian nomads into the Chinese Empire. It’s construction was one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken by any civilization and used a massive army of soldiers, convicts, and commoners as workers, many who died during it’s construction and it’s rumored that some lie buried within the walls. Made mostly of earth and stone, the wall stretched from the China Sea port of Shanhaiguan over 3,000 miles west into Gansu province. It is now recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and has been claimed to be the only manmade structure that is visible from the moon.

Our guide told us, upon arrival at Badaling that the route to the “right” was easiest and most popular. Those choosing to walk to the “left” would be rewarded with fewer tourists, but steeper terrain. So, I went to the left and walked for half an hour or so until I had to return to meet the tour bus home. There were fewer tourists and for those who know Aspen, Colorado, my hike was very similar to a trek up Smuggler Road to the platform and back. It was mostly a smooth stone path with steps and handrails at the steepest sections, potentially treacherous in wet or snowy conditions.

But what a thrill it was to walk the ancient path in near-solitude and to gaze in the distance at the wall winding over the mountain ridges as far as I could see.

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