Roads are thick with traffic, skies are thick with pollution.
And even when they get to places like the Great Wall, they are surrounded by hordes of other visitors and aggressive trinket-sellers. And you don't even have to travel too far to get to them. For instance, just north of Beihai Park in the city centre is an area that still retains the charm of Old Beijing. Narrow alleyways known as hutong are lined with residential compounds built around courtyards that are fast disappearing elsewhere. Stick your head around the walls of the hutongs and you can catch a glimpse of lives unchanged in decades.