Guide for 2 days in Beijing?
 

Hello all,

10 years since I have been in PEK. I am back next April for a short visit, this time with my wife and our kids (4 & 6 yo).

Can anyone recommend a reliable, reasonably priced and English speaking guide for the 4 of us?

We will be staying in Wangfujing so in my memories not so far from Forbidden City and Tiān'ānmén we can probably do on our own. However I also remember going to the Great Wall was another story (though I cannot remember if I previously went to Bādálǐng or Mùtiányù :o ).

Also, while we primarily aim at visiting the must-sees we are of course open to any suggestion.

Thanks for your inputs.

Yup, Wangfujing is roughly a 20 minute walk to Tian. Sq and Forbidden City. There is a pretty awesome food court in the mall you should check out! This will take most of your one day.

If you goto the Great wall, that will take your second full day. Badaling is the more touristy/crowded area and easiest to get to via public transportation. You just take the metro to the North Station (Xizhmen??) and from there the train up to the Wall. You can take the bus back to save time.

If the weather is bad, you could use Summer Palace as a backup. Just metro directly to (Belgongmen??) and spend a whole day there.

Temple of Heaven is another choice, but that is smaller than Summer palace, closer to downtown and will not take a full day. Take metro to Tiantandongmen.

For Great Wall, my hotel provided a driver for around USD$130 who took me to Mùtiányù, gave me 4 hours free time. They have a cable car to get up to the wall, and you can take a bobsled down which was very fun! I went last Feb and had the place to myself - if you can swing a private driver, definitely head to Mùtiányù.

Summer Palace would also be nice with the family, take metro line 4 to Beigongmen.

We have booked a guide & driver through http://www.catherinelutours.com/ for part of our trip this summer.

Can't recall the exact numbers but for an 8hr day, each component was around the 800RMB mark, so we have both to shuttle us around town, then just the driver on the day we go to the wall.

At the main entrance of Summer Palace, there are numerous student guides that specialize in a language, ie English, Spanish, Russian, German, French, even Chinese :)

Back in 2008 they charged around RMB$200 for 2-3 hr tour, including admission tickets. Not sure what they charge now. We actually hired two guides, one English speaking for business associates and one Chinese for my wife.