9 miles in 95° heat!

So it seemed like a really good idea to plan a family bike ride along the Xian city walls.  After all, we loved our family bike tour in Barcelona last year.

Alas, it was a lot hotter in Xian.  And sunnier.  And more humid.  And it was a 9 mile ride, on really crappy bikes dating from the Mao era...

But we persevered and still had a good, albeit slightly sunburned, time.

The wall is an immense structure surrounding the inner city of Xian, originally built in the Ming Dynasty (13th century) and stands about 40 feet tall and about 35 feet wide.  It's been repaved a few times (and a marathon is run on it later in the year) so it was only moderately bumpy!

Some of the gate towers on the wall have been beautifully restored.

And we saw some leftover lanterns from last year's Mid-Autumn Festival that made for a fun section of the wall to ride on.

Anders, our trusty Swede, told us that Westerners can typically get all the way around the wall in about 45-50 mins while the Chinese take a more leisurely pace and take closer to 90 mins.  Which do you think we were?!