This day Beijing tour begins at 09:00am and ends at around 5:00pm. Please get everything ready before our English-speaking guide comes and meets you in the lobby of the hotel where you stay. It’s about one and half hours driving to the first stop of the main attractions.   

Juyongguan Pass lies 50 Km northwest of Beijing, it is located in a 15 Km long valley. Many passes were built at strategic points along the wall, and the Juyongguan Pass was one of them. Besides its strategic significance, this pass was also famous for its beautiful scenery. In fact, in the Jin Dynasty (1115-1234 A.D), this place was listed as one of the Eight Best Scenic Spots in Beijing. 

The gate in the center of Juyongguan Pass is built of finely carved marble and called Cloud Terrace or Guojie (crossing-street) in Chinese. This building was originally the base of three towers and was built as early as 1345, more than 500 years of history now, this marble Cloud Terrace is nearly 10 meters high, the bottom is 27 meters long from east to west, 15 meters wide from north to south. Seen from distance, this terrace is bigger at the bottom and smaller at the top. 

Originally, on the top of the cloud terrace stood three towers, but an earthquake in the early Ming Dynasty destroyed the three towers on the top, only the terrace itself left. An arch gateway is underneath the terrace, which is more than 7 meters high, 6 meters wide, wide enough for carriages to go through. Both side of the arch gateway are decorated with carvings of Buddha, four Celestial Kings, and the text of a Buddist Sutra in Chinese, Tibetan, Sanskrit and three other minority languages. 

In 1644, the troops of Peasant Uprising led by Li Zicheng, whose statue we saw on the way to the Great Wall, took over Beijing and entered the city from here. It was Li Zicheng, this peasant general who overthrew the Ming Dynasty that same year. At that time, this was a very crowded area. Later on, buses as well as railways went by here, nobody would stay here for the night or do business any more, therefore, this area gradually became deserted. 

12:00pm, It is time for lunch when you finish seeing Juyongguan Great Wall. We would like to offer Beijing day tour with lunch in a local restaurant, which is included in the given price. We also consider that in this way you can learn a lot more about Chinese cuisines during your stay in China. 2 hours are needed for having lunch and driving to the next stop, the Forbidden City.  

The Purple Forbidden City contains the imperial palaces of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Twenty-four emperors, fourteen in the Ming, and ten in the Qing Dynasties, ruled here. It covers an area of 72 hectares. It is rectangular in shape, 961 meters long from north to south and 753 meters wide from east to west. There are 9999.5 rooms in the whole ancient Chinese architecture complex. There are 9999.5 rooms because Chinese used to believe that only the palace for the ruler in the heaven could have ten thousand rooms. But not all of the rooms are open to the public. For visiting the public parts, 2 or 2.5 hours are needed.  

This day tour ends with the transfer back to your hotel at around 5:00pm. We hope that this day tour arrangement just fits your need. We look forward to hearing from you.