-- From Beijing to Nanjing

The 08/08 we left Beijing towards 10:30 by the peripherals and the Tainjin highway. The day was already very hot and the polluted fog covered the city.

The road tracklog 
from Beijing to Tai'an 
from the 08/07/2006 to the 10/08/2006 

Arrived towards 12:00 in Tianjin, former T'ien-tsin, we stationed on the carpark of Makros before visiting it. The “Street of the Culture” is actually a commercial street without much interest. On the other hand the old district “The Concessions” preserved old houses which were better than thirty minutes a fast course. After the second war of the 1858 opium, France settled in its concession in 1861. The architecture is end of 19th and beginning of the 20th century. The French Chamber of Commerce is a good example. Each building is identified by an English marble plate with a Chinese text.

The French Chamber of Commerce 
Tianjin 
08/08/2006 

The 09/08 we took the highway to go to visit the hill of the Thousand Buddha in Jinan. A monastery is at the top of the hill that a path arranged and bordered of kiosks and houses make it possible to reach by climbing a great number of steps. A cable-car makes it possible to reach the mid- slope. This stage can be to pass without damage.

The hill of the Thousand Buddha 
Jinan 
09/08//2006 

We took again the road towards 16:30 to go to Liubu which we reached towards 18:00 while going along a river arranged for the bathe. We bivouacked on the carpark of the Pagoda with Four Gateswhich we visited the following day. It was built into 544 in a park installed on the sides of the gorge of a small river.

Pagoda with the Four Gates 
Liubu 
10/08/2006 

We took again the road towards 10:30 to go to Tia'an to climb the Taishan Mount in minibus and cable car. Named "Pic of the East" it is the residence of the regent of the terrestrial world on behalf of the “Jade Auguste”. The site is imposing bathing in the fog that transitory breaks made it possible to discover all the majesty of it.

The Tiashan Mount 
Tia' year 
10/08/2006 

The bivouac of the 10/08 took place on a service area of the highway at the exit of Tai'an to Shanghai.

Qufu is the town of birth and residence of the “Perfect Master”, Confucius. Contemporary of the Buddha Sakyamuni, it is at the origin of a worship taking part with Buddhism and the Taoism in the thousand-year-old age of China. Three sites were visited, the Residence of the Descendants, the Great Temple and the Forests of the steles where is Confucius' tomb.

Confucius' tomb 
Qufu 
11/08/2006 

The 12/08, we visited the buried Army of Han in Xuzhou. Three pits were discovered in 1987, other pits were updated under a lake and were opened with the public in April 2006. Built subsequently to the funerary whole of the Emperor Qin Shi Huang in Xian, the figurines are of lower size and less elaborate work.

Han terracotta warrior army
Xuzhou 
12/08/2006 

After a bivouac in Luhe around 8 p.m. in front of a hotel where my companions took rooms, we arrived in Nanjing the 13/08 around 12 noon. The city had approximately 6 million inhabitants in 2006. The avenues of the center town are bordered of trees with low branches obliging me to drive in the middle of the roadway due to the 3,6 meters height of my truck. We found a carpark close to the hotel where we wished to take rooms. Nanjing is one of the three hottest cities in China with Chongqing and Wuhan. The temperature was 36°C with 87% of moisture.

Fuzi temple 
Nanjing 
13/08/2006 

Since our departure from Beijing, the temperature did not go down in lower part from 34°C with more than 80% of moisture during the day. The fog stagnated permanently as well with the top of the cities as of the countryside.