Xian is a great walled city, and although you can’t walk the whole perimeter (14 kilometres) you can progress a fair way – we walked from the south gate to the east gate. As we entered at the south entrance, we saw a bright and cheerful display celebrating the year of the cockerel in the entrance courtyard.
We climbed one of the staircases to the top of the South Gate tower and could fully take in this impressive defensive structure. The walls were built onto the foundations of Xian’s original forbidden city in the mid-1300s. They are 12 metres high, a full 13 metres wide at the top (18 metres at the base), and some great views of the town can be had as you wander the wall. Keep an eye out, though, because this isn’t a totally traffic-free zone, and it won’t be unusual to meet a bicycle or one of the motorised tourist "trains".
Every 120 metres, there is an enemy tower (many of them converted to small shops or cafés). The distant apart is highly significant, as the range of the archers in the enemy tower was 60 metres, so it would have been impossible for an attacking army to approach the city wall without being in range from the defenders. The main towers would have garrisoned the back-up forces in case of an attack.
Between the south gate and the corner turret, there were a range of permanent displays depicting life in the life of the emperors. These bright, colourful displays may have been Disney rejects, as they add a bit of interest for children, but they distract from the magnitude of the wall.
Looking over the wall near the south gate, we got a superb view of the decorative work on the older palatial properties. On the other side, we saw traffic thundering around the outskirts and a small stream flowing through picturesque gardens with the mandatory pagoda. Momentarily, I imagined this as open countryside, and how daunting Xian would have been several centuries ago--not one to attack lightly.
As we walked eastwards, we looked towards the city and saw men crouched at street corners playing cards and dice, building demolition, extensive house restoration (mainly re-roofing), a busy street market, and total traffic chaos as kamikaze cyclists meandered across the paths of oncoming vehicles. This is the way to watch the life of the city – perhaps we should have brought our binoculars with us, but then, that might have seemed too intrusive!
It was late afternoon as we descended from the wall at the East Gate, and as we walked back to the hotel, we saw almost a hundred local males sitting at the side of the road, clutching the tools of their trade (lump hammers, paint brushes, chisels, etc). They were labourers hoping to be selected for the night shift on the local building sites. People aren’t work-shy here, but jobs are clearly hard to come by.