Private Tour: Great Wall of China at Juyongguan and Ming Tombs from Beijing

Two Ming-dynasty sites, half an hour apart, an hour out of Beijing: the wall the dynasty built to keep armies out, and the ground where thirteen of its emperors were buried. This is a private day covering both, with your own vehicle and guide.

Juyongguan is the closest section of the Great Wall to Beijing, roughly 60 kilometres northwest of the centre, and it is built differently from the sections further out. Rather than running along a single ridge, it is a fortified pass: the wall comes down one side of a narrow valley, crosses the floor of it where the gate and garrison buildings stand, and climbs the other side.

That layout means you can walk the whole circuit and come back to where you started, up one ridge and down the other, without retracing a step or arranging a pickup somewhere else. It is steep in places — long flights of uneven stone stairs — but it is a loop, and you can turn back at any point.

At the centre of the pass stands the Cloud Platform, a white marble gate base from the fourteenth century, carved inside with Buddhist figures and with inscriptions in six scripts.

About 45 kilometres north of Beijing, at the foot of the hills at Changping, thirteen Ming emperors were buried over some two hundred years in a valley chosen for it. Each tomb is its own walled complex of halls and courtyards leading back to a burial mound.

Dingling is the one you go into. It belonged to the Wanli Emperor, and it is the only one of the thirteen to have been excavated — the underground palace was opened in the 1950s, and its stone chambers, some 27 metres below ground, can be walked through. The excavation was not a happy one: much of what was recovered was poorly stored and lost, and it is the reason the Chinese authorities have left the other twelve tombs sealed.

Being private, the day runs to your pace rather than a coach group’s, and the order of the two sites is yours and the guide’s to settle in the morning.

The wall at Juyongguan is a real climb on uneven stone steps, with steep flights and handrails that come and go. Wear shoes with grip, take water, and be honest about how far up you want to go — the views are good well before the top. There is no cable car here.

Dingling’s underground chambers are reached by a long stair down and are cool and damp year-round, so bring a layer even in summer. Admission to both sites is charged separately unless your booking says otherwise, and both keep their own opening hours.