Late afternoon - the south gate and the barbican
Yongning Gate is the south gate of the Ming wall, built with the rest of the circuit between 1370 and 1378, and it is the most elaborate of the four main gates. What you walk through on the way in is a defensive sequence rather than a gate: across the moat to the sluice tower, then into a crescent-shaped outer enceinte, then into the enclosed barbican in front of the main gate tower. An attacker who forced the first door was sealed inside that courtyard with fire from the walls on three sides. The arrow tower above carries its rows of loopholes, and the gate tower behind it holds the drums used at the opening and closing of the city.
Dinner near the gate
Dinner is at a restaurant in the streets inside the South Gate, close to Shuyuanmen and the old Confucian temple quarter, so that the walk to the ceremony afterwards is short. The menu is the ordinary Xi'an one - cold noodles with sesame and vinegar, dumplings, a wheat dish or two, braised pork and a soup - and the tables are booked early enough that there is no pressure to hurry. If you would rather eat after the ceremony, the guide can hold a later table and the walk on the wall can be moved ahead of the meal instead; the order of the evening is flexible and depends on the ceremony's published time on your date.
Evening - the welcome ceremony
The Tang-style welcome ceremony at Yongning Gate is a costumed gate-opening ritual: ceremonial guards in Tang armour, drumming, banners and officials of the reception bureau playing out the arrival of guests at the imperial city. It runs fifteen to twenty minutes and is staged at published times, most reliably in the evening and on weekends during the season, and it is staged inside the barbican, which puts the audience between the walls of the old defence. Two practical warnings: the schedule changes by season and by month, and the ceremony is suspended in bad weather, so your guide confirms the timing the day before and reshuffles the evening if it has been cancelled. Photography from the ramparts above is allowed and gives the best angle.
Evening - the lit wall
The wall is illuminated every night, and the ramparts, watchtowers and gate towers carry projection lighting of their own. In the cold months, roughly from the Lunar New Year period into February, the wall also holds its Spring Festival lantern fair, which has run for more than three decades and fills the southern ramparts with large illuminated set pieces; it is one of the biggest lantern displays in the country and worth arranging a trip around if your dates are flexible. Your walk along the top afterwards, with the moat and the ring park below and the traffic of the modern city beyond, is about a kilometre and takes half an hour at an unhurried pace.
Cultural Insight - reading the wall as a system
The circuit is 13.74 kilometres long, 12 metres high, 12 to 14 metres wide at the top and 15 to 18 metres thick at the base, with a watchtower roughly every 120 metres and close to six thousand crenellated battlements along the outer edge. It was built in the Ming on the line of the Tang imperial city, has been repaired repeatedly since, and is now used as public space - the top carries bicycles by day and an international marathon that has been run since 1993. The lighting is the newest layer on a structure that has been rebuilt more than once, which is a reasonable thing to keep in mind while you look at it.
Meals
Dinner
Accommodation
Day tour - no hotel night included.
