Took the subway from Chongwenmen, walked there,huge queues at Beijing Railway Station, to Xizhimen. Then walked about 100m to Beijing North Railway Station, a huge new polished granite and glass station, with no automatic ticket machines. Waited 75 mins for the first available train to Badaling, 11.08.
(You should be at a Chinese railway station 20 mins before the train leaves, the trains are boarded like aircraft, you sit in a waiting area until your train is called. The train is filled and the station door closed 5 mins or more before the train leaves.)
Arrived there about an hour later. The journey on its own was good. The mountains suddenly appear out of the gloom and then bits of the wall appear. The wall is remarkable and I got a nice sunny day. There were a lot of tourists I was surprised by how many but it is a nice outing, I guess some local people have been many times. Got the train back at 15.22 and arrived back at my hotel at 17.15. A really nice day.
