Great Wall & Forbidden City 2-Day Tour: Cable car descent included

★★★★★★★★★★ 4.98 (523 reviews) 99% rated it 5 stars

Free cancellationTravelers' pick

1/28

Duration2d

GroupPrivate

LanguagesEN · DE +3

PickupAt your hotel

Two Days in Beijing Without the Planning

You get picked up from your hotel and spend two days moving through Beijing's main landmarks — Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, hutongs, Temple of Heaven, Mutianyu Great Wall, and Summer Palace — with a private English-speaking guide handling all entry fees, transport, and lunch. No research, no ticket lines, no figuring out how to get between sites. Just show up at your hotel lobby and go.

Step-by-step itinerary

Day 1 — City tour: Tiananmen, Forbidden City, Hutongs

Meet guide in hotel lobby
Visit Tiananmen Square
Explore Forbidden City
Walk around Hutong near Shichahai Lake
Visit Temple of Heaven park

Day 2 — Mutianyu Great Wall and Summer Palace

Travel to Mutianyu Great Wall
Take cable car or chairlift up
Hike and explore Watch Towers
Return by toboggan or same way
Visit Summer Palace gardens

The Experience

Your guide doesn't show up at the hotel lobby on time — and then you realize he's been waiting outside because the front desk didn't pass along the message. That's the kind of thing that gets sorted in the first five minutes with a private guide on a Beijing tour, which is why having someone who knows the city and speaks English saves you from spending half your morning on logistics. You meet at Tiananmen Square, the world's largest public square, and your guide walks you through what you're actually looking at — the history, the layout, why it matters — instead of you standing there with a guidebook trying to piece it together.

Day one moves through the Forbidden City, where you'll spend a couple of hours walking the outer and inner courts, learning how emperors and their households lived for 500 years across the Ming and Qing dynasties. After that, you walk the hutongs near Shichahai Lake — these narrow lanes are about 30 feet wide and date back to the Yuan Dynasty, and they're where you actually see how people lived in old Beijing, not the polished version. Then comes the Temple of Heaven, an enormous imperial worship site where locals still gather to sing, dance, and practice tai chi. Lunch is included, so you're not hunting for a restaurant between stops.

Day two is the Mutianyu Great Wall section, which is one of the most visited parts of the wall for a reason — it's well-preserved and less crowded than Badaling. You take a cable car or chairlift up (your choice), spend 1 to 2 hours hiking the wall and exploring the watchtowers, and then you can either toboggan back down or walk. The Summer Palace comes last, an imperial park with gardens and architecture that's held up better than most. All entrance fees are covered, all transport is arranged, and the guide handles the logistics so you're not juggling tickets or timing.

The tour runs two full days with hotel pickup and drop-off included. If you need a guide in Spanish, German, Italian, or French instead of English, there's an extra 800 RMB fee — you just need to let them know three days ahead. The itinerary is flexible, so if the weather turns or you want to spend more time at one stop, they'll adjust. Anything over eight hours per day costs extra, but the standard tour fits within that.

What’s included

Your tour includes hotel pickup and drop-off, a private English-speaking guide for both days, all entrance fees to the Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, Mutianyu Great Wall, and Summer Palace, roundtrip cable car, chairlift, or toboggan at the Great Wall, and lunch on both days.

Good to know

Easy physical levelWheelchair accessible

Operated by Catherine Lu Tours

Is this one for you?Book this if you're visiting Beijing for 2 days and want to see the main sights without spending time researching, buying tickets separately, or arranging transport between sites — the private guide and fixed itinerary handle all of that, leaving you to focus on the actual experience.