Beijing Forbidden City and Great Wall at Mutianyu: Exclusive VIP Access and Hiking Experience

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Beijing

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Experience exclusive VIP access to the Beijing Forbidden City and hike the Great Wall at Mutianyu. Skip the lines, avoid crowds, and delve into the rich history and culture of Beijing. No shopping, no factories, no queues!

Duration: 8 hours

Cancellation: 24 hours

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Highlights

Tiananmen Square (Tiananmen Guangchang) - Time: 8:00 - 8:30
Tian’anmen Square is the largest city square in the centre of Beijing, named after the Tiananmen (literally, Gate of Heavenly Peace) which sits to its north, separating it from the Forbidden City. It has great cultural significance as it was the site of several key events in Chinese…

Tiananmen Square (Tiananmen Guangchang) - Time: 8:00 - 8:30

Tian’anmen Square is the largest city square in the centre of Beijing, named after the Tiananmen (literally, Gate of Heavenly Peace) which sits to its north, separating it from the Forbidden City. It has great cultural significance as it was the site of several key events in Chinese history. As the world’s largest city square and enduring symbol of China’s national pride, it is surrounded by many imposing buildings including the Heavenly Gate (entry to the Forbidden City), Museums, government buildings and Chairman Mao’s Mausoleum.

Forbidden City-The Palace Museum - Time: 8:30 -10:30

The Forbidden City, in the very heart of Beijing, was home to 24 emperors during the Ming (1368â1644) and Qing (1644â1911) dynasties. It is the largest and best preserved ancient imperial architectural complex in the world, featuring a great square, halls and gates, in contrast to intricate halls, gardens, courtyards and living quarters. The exhibitions, both permanent and temporary, are important treasures of ancient China. You will be walking for about 1.5-2 hours (2 kilometers). The walks in the Forbidden City are graded moderate.

Mutianyu Great Wall - In order to save your time, we suggest you to choose round-way cable car or toboggan ascend to and descend from the Great Wall, instead of spending about 40 minutes climbing lots of boring steps. Cable car station is at Tower 14. Chairlift & toboggan station is at Tower 6.

At the Wall you’ll have free time to enjoy the beautiful scenery and your guide will show you the background information of the Great Wall. The cable car ascends to and descends from the 14th watch tower. We recommend you to hike up the most beautiful part of the Great Wall – between the 14th and 23rd watch towers which were known by hikers as “the Golden Route”. However the chairlift ascends to the 6th watch tower while the toboggan descends from tower 6 too. It might be a challenge to hike from the 6th watch tower to the 23rd watch tower. But you can decide based on your physic condition.

Normally it would take about 2 hours to complete the hike from the 14th watch tower to 23rd watch tower.

What's Included

Bottled water
Admission ticket for Forbidden City
Professional English Speaking Guide
Admission ticket for Mutianyu Great Wall
All fees and/or taxes
Hotel pickup and drop-off within the 4th Ring Zone of Beijing
Clean and tidy air-conditioned vehicle

What's Not Included

Lunch
Round-way cable car or tobogan at the Great Wall. Price is about USD 19 p/p..
Gratuities

Additional Information

Experience the majesty of the Great Wall of China and the Forbidden City in a single day. As our cherished VIP visitors, bypass the queues at the Forbidden City and enjoy an uncrowded trek on the Mutianyu Great Wall. Maximise your valuable time in Beijing and delve into the city’s rich history and culture. Say goodbye to shopping, factories, and long…

Location

Tiananmen Square (Tiananmen Guangchang)

West Changan Street, Dongcheng District,

Cancellation Policy

For a full refund, cancel at least 24 hours before the scheduled departure time.

Customer Ratings

4.9

(343 Ratings)

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641gregors

Sep 6, 2023

Great Tour except the lunch - We did the Mini Group Tour: Beijing Forbidden City Tour with Great Wall Hiking at Mutianyu with Dan as guide. It was a wunderful day with a very well organized tour, which we enjoyed very much! The trip through the forbidden city was a little bit less detailed than I expected but still very nice. You basically just follow the very touristic route straight through the core of the city and the guide will tell some instersting stories or facts about the buildings and artworks. The stay at the Great Wall was amazing, we really took a lot of time for a hike along the wall and Dan answered all questions in detail. But keep in mind that you have to pay an extra 15-20 US$ for the caple car. They offer you to walk to the wall but I am not sure if that is really an option because than you would not have a lot of time at the wall itself. The only thing which was really bad was the lunch. Dan told us there wouldn't be any good chinese restaurants in Mutianyu so we would have to eat at Burger King. After we ordered at Burer King the WORST meal of our whole trip in Asia, Dan left and came back with some amazing chinese food for herself from a little place just around the corner. We were sitting there asking ourself why she didn't tell us about this place beforehand but nobody explained to us why. For future tours: PLEASE give people the choice where to eat lunch! Besides that we had a great day! Thank you again for everything Dan!

Review provided by Tripadvisor

Abi

Jul 17, 2023

Knowledgeable and kind guide - Very cool tour, I went in the winter of 2022, so the Great Wall was completely deserted. Covid restrictions were still in place at this time. I was the only one to book, so it ended up being a full-day, private tour 😊

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Wolfgang_b

Jul 9, 2023

Great tour! - Very nice tour with a very nice tourguide. Great wall in the early morning was impressive. I recommend.

Review provided by Viator

Ymaki

May 17, 2021

Good comprehensive tour of forbidden city and great wall - Overall a good day tour. Our guide William picked us up with his driver at our hotel, and we went directly to Tiananmen Square. We had a private driver and we were the only ones on the tour, so we never needed to wait for parking or for anybody else. This was very convenient and worth the expense, as car travel is very time consuming in Beijing. After Tiananmen Square, we walked directly to the Forbidden City. Then our driver picked us up and we had lunch on the way to the Great Wall (fee not included). It took 2 hours to get back from the wall to the hotel. All the experience was smooth save for the usual Beijing traffic. William is a full time tour guide, so he was very knowledgeable about the history of China and relevant events which happened at the tour destinations. He even drew out a detailed map for us by hand to show the location of the Great Wall and the reason why it was built at that latitude. William also said he specializes in foreign tours, which makes sense because his English was good. For any tour in general, especially in countries where English is not the first language, I recommend you pick a tour agency which employs full time rather than part time tour guides, as I have found the quality of the tours to be much better. Note that the Forbidden City and Great Wall are not wheelchair friendly. Expect a decent amount of uphill walking on the Great Wall if you wish to visit tower 20 (recommended). Overall a positive experience worth the time and money. However I will likely not tour these locations again in the near future, because I think once is enough for these types of historical tours.

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Ttoriginal

Jan 23, 2020

Just do it! - We had an amazing day with enough time at the Great Wall to go from one end to the other end and back. Probably not everyone will come so far, but you can try. The weather was brilliant, we had a perfect view and the wall is really a life goal everyone should have seen this. Our guide Tom was very kind and he spoke english very well. What also was very important to me: We didn't have to buy anything. If you have the time just do it. This tour is worth every penny!

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Megan

Jan 23, 2020

Amazing Day in Beijing!! - Tom was my tour guide and he took us to see the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square and the Great Wall, it was an amazing day! He had lots of knowledge about the places we visited which made it even better. Thanks for a great day!

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Sarahmf6633eh

Jan 22, 2020

Great tour with Tom, highly recommend - We had a great tour with Tom to the forbidden city & Great Wall at Mutianyu. Tom was really knowledgable and a great tour guide, he knew lots about the history and went out of his way to help us learn. Lunch was delicious, especially the di San Xian which is now my new favourite! Thankyou Tom for a wonderful day! Sarah & Chris from London.

Review provided by Tripadvisor

Alexjsw

Jan 20, 2020

Beijing Tour - Our tour guide, Cactus, really showed us a great time. We had limited time in Beijing and managed to check off everything we wanted to see in one day. We felt we had plenty of time at each site and Cactus gave us great historical context for everywhere, as well as great places to take photos on the wall. Also loved the restaurant she took us to between the Forbidden City and the wall. Highly recommend both the tour and guide!

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Solotraveler333333

Jan 17, 2020

I loved this tour! - Tom was an excellent tour guide. The entire day was smooth from pickup to drop off. He was knowledgeable about the Forbidden City and the history of the Great Wall. I used this day as a side trip when I was in China for work. It was the best part of the entire trip. It was me and four other people so the group was not big and there were other solo travelers. Tom also contacted me the next morning to give me a heads up that because it snowed the night before I would want to head out earlier than I had planned for the train station!

Review provided by Tripadvisor

Mchebeir

Jan 15, 2020

great tour with small numbers - Tom was a great guide and really knew his history! Having this all inclusive tour was great to really experience all the sights and rock out at the great wall.

Review provided by Tripadvisor

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up to 15 guests

1 Adult