Beijing
 

Has anyone been there on Holiday, just curious if its a place to go for a holiday and how much of a nightmare is it to get a visa?

Wife has been twice.
Visas aren't easy, but once obtained, they try and please you.

Hotels are good, Chinese food isn't what you expect at ALL, and there are loads of things to see.

She says go for it.

I already have the hotel picked out its "Lee garden service apartments" and I was going to book a 2 bedroomed apartment. Is it sensible to get a visa before booking the holiday? I tried ringing the Chinese embassy but all I get is a recorded message.

Yes, get a visa first, or get your chosen travel agent to look into it.

If it's booked for a holiday and you can show you are on with that, you get priority.

The Chinese are very keen to get tourists in, they are very proud of what they have done.

Don't forget to go and buy pearls.

I stopped off there for a week a couple of years ago, on my way overland by train to Singapore via Russia, Mongolia, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Malaysia. Visa was no problem to get, I got all my visas (Belarus, Russia, Mongolia, China and Vietnam) together through an agent in London. I stayed in a traditional courtyard hotel in the old hutong area of Dongsi, called the Double Happiness :) Fantastic place to visit, but watch out for god awful pollution. I found the Beijingers courteous and friendly, and quite laid back compared to their southern cousins in Canton and Hong Kong. However, watch out for scams, Beijingers are by nature hustlers, and pretty good at it. Public transport is terrific, the ever expanding metro is clean, reliable and safe. Seeing the amount of pollution from vehicles, industry, and mining, made me realise that driving around in Europe in a Prius is not going to make a blind bit of difference....

Stopped off there on the way to Hong Kong and they fully immigrated me and pushed me out the arrivals door into open China. Absolutely no visa and I could have wandered off into the distance and they wouldn't have been any the wiser.

The idea was that you turned left and walked 100m with all your bags etc to the departures terminal. Luckily I worked that out 'cos no-one spoke English & there was no legible signage in a format that was anyway near obvious.

(This was 25 years ago nearly, so things might have changed)