Step into the captivating world of the Huguang Guild Hall, built in 1807, this historic gem once hosted influential merchants and officials from Hubei and Hunan provinces. Today, its stunning opera stage, intricate carvings, and timeless charm turned it into a cultural museum to experience the vibrant spirit of imperial China!
Discover the enchanting charm of Beijing's Hutong neighborhoods, where ancient alleys weave stories of the city's rich history and vibrant local culture. Stroll through these narrow lanes to uncover traditional courtyard homes, hidden cafes, and bustling markets. Every turn offers a glimpse of old Beijing, blending timeless traditions with the heartbeat of modern city life!
Step into the artistic heart of Beijing at Liulichang, a historic street renowned for its antique treasures and cultural charm. This vibrant hub of creativity is lined with shops offering exquisite calligraphy, traditional paintings, rare books, and handcrafted curios...
Dive into the vibrant energy of Yangmeizhu Byway, where history and modern creativity collide in the heart of Beijing! This trendy alley buzzes with boutique shops, quirky art studios, and stylish cafes, all set against a backdrop of rich cultural heritage!
Experience the lively spirit of Beijing at Dashilan Street, the city's oldest and most vibrant commercial hub! Bursting with iconic shops, trendy boutiques, and local delicacies, this bustling pedestrian street perfectly blends historic charm with modern flair. From traditional silk and tea to quirky souvenirs, every corner of Dashilan invites you to soak in its rich history and dynamic energy—an unmissable stop for any Beijing adventure!
Qianmen is where Beijing's timeless history meets its vibrant modern soul! This iconic street, just south of Tiananmen Square, is a bustling hub of culture, shopping, and cuisine. Stroll along its restored ancient facades, discover local treasures, and savor traditional snacks that have delighted visitors for centuries!
The tour guide was able to explain clearly on the places visited. She brought us to the market to try the local delights. Overall the experience with the tour was terrific. Highly recommended!
Thank you! Free Tours Beijing and Sherry!!!! The tour was fantastic, the guide was excellent, knowledgeable, and kept us entertained for three hours, thank you for an unforgettable day in Beijing
We really enjoyed the tour. Mei, our tour guide showed us all interesting places :)
I had Sherry as a guide and she was amazing! Creat energy, very knowledgeable and gave us a nice walk to all the important places
Mei was an excellent tour guide! The tour was very helpful to know more about china and their culture.
Nice tour and great guide. It was a very good experience visiting the hutongs and walking around the historic areas of Beijing. We also enjoyed the calligraphy activity and making our own Chinese character. A lovely way to discover the city and its culture.
Great experience with Sivan, we learned a lot
Great walking tour in Beijing! Luna was an excellent guide and explained so many interesting things about the city, its history and culture. The whole tour was very enjoyable, easy to follow and never felt heavy or boring. The only “negative” thing we can say is that we would have happily stayed longer — the time went by very quickly! Definitely recommended if you want to discover Beijing in an interesting and entertaining way.
Sivan speaks English. She shares many fascinating details about the City, Chinese history. Beyond being an outstanding professional who helps with whatever you need. We were able to explore the old quarter with its traditional houses. We also had the opportunity to try our hand at Chinese calligraphy and sample dumplings near the market street, in addition to walking along other main commercial streets.
it was a super great tour! Three hours with an amazing activity! Thanks so much :)
Luna is a wonderful guide. Her English is perfect and she told stories of Beijing hutongs with patience and humor. Highlight of this tour are the calligraphy class and snacks — definitely hidden gems that you won’t get just visiting the scenic spots. I would definitely recommend this tour to people who want to visit Beijing. This lit up my curiosity about this county.
A great way to visit the Hutongs. Very informative. Great guide and the calligraphy was a fun add on
Luna was a great guide taking us through loads of areas of Beijing. Highly recommended
I took this free walking tour on my first day in Beijing, and it was the best choice! The guide speaks excellent English, very easy to follow. She took us to some authentic local spots in hutongs that I would never have found as a tourist. A surprising highlight was the calligraphy workshop — we got to not only watch demonstrations but also write our own Chinese characters and bring back home as souvenirs. I also really appreciated the snack stop where the guide helped us to taste delicious local pancakes and gave us a list of food recommendations. If you’re visiting Beijing, you cannot miss this tour. 10/10!
Yan was amazing!! anazing in depth tour which was the perfect introduction to beijing. The cartography was extremely fun as well!!
The tour was a very well organised introduction into the history of the city of Beijing. It was full of nice little stops and information. Our tour guide made it interactive by asking a few questions to make sure we were understanding. Also, we had a few breaks to have a bit, go to the bathroom or briefly explore on your own. Overall great tour, would definitely recommend!
On this tour we had Yan as our guide. She was well prepared with interesting information about the city, the hutongs and their history. We enjoyed her enthusiasm in sharing her knowledge with us and did her best to answer all our questions. We especially enjoyed the calligraphy workshop, that was a little short. It would be nice to have a selection of different characters to try out. But all in all it was a very pleasant tour and a perfect way to spend a sunny spring morning.
Yan was an excellent tour guide! She was very knowledgeable and had a great handle on group management. The platform we booked the experience with had no mention of calligraphy, so that was a nice surprise for us! We managed to see so many places and learn a lot in such a short amount of time. Highly enjoyed this walking tour.
If you are looking for an introduction to Beijing and its history, we highly recommend this experience from Free Tours China. Sivan was an excellent host and generous guide.
It is just a walk through an alley ( Hutong)The guide was talking & quizzing us more than needed. Felt very rushed. Thecailgraphy painting experience was nice. From the beginning, she was stressing on the amount we needed to pay her , even before the tour commenced.Obviously we knew we had to pay her.
Excellent tour with a wide variety of interesting stops. Our guide, Sivan, was very informative. Thoroughly recommended ahead of the "big organisations" equivalents.
Our tour guide was very lovely. We had an amazing day with other tourists, and we appreciated the calligraphy section a lot. We also created a connection with another couple, and the next day we went to dinner together :) 5/5 experience
The Beijing free walking tour is one of the most enjoyable free tours I've done! It was a great mix of history, culture, and fun activities. The guide shared lots of local insights and tips for exploring Beijing, and was very patient while teaching us Chinese calligraphy. I only wish I had done this on my first day in Beijing!
Amazing tour of the centric area of Beijin and the hutongs. Special mention to my guide Sherry. She is a local and gave a lot of good infomations and reply every question
5-star experience! Sivan is a wonderful guide with perfect English and a very helpful attitude. She showed us a unique side of Beijing with many lesser-known spots and even taught us some calligraphy.Highly recommend!
Very interesting. Sherry our guide was very knowledgeable. Love the calligraphy experience and the history.
A really nice tour by Sherry! Learned a lot and got lots of useful information. Can recommend :)
Carrie was an excellent guide. She managed to give us a clear idea of what life in the city used to be, as well as showing us what it is like to live in the city nowadays. She was well prepared, knew what she wanted us to see, chose the stops accordingly and overall provided a very good experience
We had a great experience with Sivan. She speaks very good english and showed us a lot of nice spots with good information. We enjoyed the experience and apreciated the time and knowledge she shared with us.
Thoroughly enjoyed this 3 hour mini group tour around the southern old town Hutong of Beijing. Sherry was an excellent guide, giving us some great information on the city and its history. We stopped at a small craft venue which was both a nice break from walking but also a chance to have some fun trying Chinese calligraphy (and don’t worry, no hard sell, it was free to have a go!). All in all I would recommend this tour as a great way to get an insight into the history of the area and visit some places that it would be easy to miss if all you look for in Beijing are the big well known sights.
Great free walking tour with a lot og interesting and funny stories about China and Beijing. Very interactive with activities and snack break. The guide Carrie was very Nice and very easy to understand. Can highly recommend!
Our guide was Sherry, she speaks English very well and gave us details of the Hutong, the houses structures, the lifestyles, and the houses and streets architectures. We enjoyed the experience of writing chinese calligraphy as well, and visiting the morning fresh food market. It was a great experience and a 3.5 hour well spent.
Our guide, Sevan, was friendly and energetic and made for a great walking tour. She made everything interesting and fun, and the itinerary included places we would either not have found or not understood. This was a very enjoyable experience.
Our guide, Sevan, was really fun and made a really great day for us. We learned so much and had fun with food tasting, roaming ancient neighborhoods, and even trying our hand with a brush for Chinese calligraphy! I could not give a higher recommendation, it was a really great day full of discoveries and interactive experiences.
The tour was very interesting, the places we visited were very "local" and not so touristy, and our guide was great. I would recommend it !
I have done a lot of free tours, and something that I really enjoyed about this one, was the fact that they gave us some free time in several stops to immerse ourselves in the place. This is something I really appreciated because a lot of the times we pass quickly through the different places, and we can't actually enjoy them and many times, we don't have the time to go back before returning home. One of the stops had a very sweet and funny cat, that made our day. Additionally, they taught us a little bit about Chinese calligraphy and how to play with a Jianzi, which was also a great plus. However, some of the stops were too long, so sometimes I felt we were wasting time. We had two tour guides, and they did a great job expressing themselves. Information was good, but I would have like more information regarding the most recent history of China. It was the first free tour I have done were they recommended a price, which for me was a little elevated. I understand the hard work that it implies and that they are giving their heart and time to it. However, if I compared what they recommended to other tours that had a fixed price with other companies, the activity-price ratio was higher. The good thing is that we weren’t obligated to give them that recommended price.
Yes, one should do this tour on the first day in Beijing to get a good introduction. The length of the tour was perfect. It is easy to go back to the favorite places.
Great experience. Carrie was very dedicated and tell us a lot of stories about the houtongs and chinese history. 5 stars for the tour!!!!
This is a great way to see how people in Beijing live in the more every day situation, whilst also explaining it in its historical context. Carrie spoke perfect English and was happy to answer any questions, we were also able to buy some genuine street food
Incredible!! Carrie is very friendly and answered all our questions about life and details of the lifestyle. I recommend doing this at the beginning of your visit to the city as it gives you many recommendations to make your experience complete.
It was a huge group and it wasn't what I expected, but I'm glad I went. I thought we'd do all the big stuff like Tiananmen Square, etc. and instead we went to a Hutong neighborhood but it was good, because I learned about that instead!
Very knowledgeable and interesting stories of life past and present of Chinese lifestyle. We sampled street food and enjoyed the hustle of Qianmen pedestrian street a must if time is limited
Highly recommend this walking tour! Hao our tour guide was very informative. For just a 2-3 hour tour, it gives a good insight into Chinese history and ways of living in Hutongs.
I had an amazing time on this tour. It was informative and relaxed. We saw some awesome sights and were immersed in Chinese history.
today we had an excellent day with our guide Hao, who made us discover old Beijing and the hutong, she speaks very good English, and she is very nice, I highly recommend her without any problem.
Hao is a very good guide who explains the daily life in Beijing. The tour goes through the houtongs to understand its organization. The tour teachs you many details about how is Pekin also. Very easy and nice tour.
Back to Beijing after more than 15 years, what a smartest way to renew with the authentic heart of the city than visiting the Hutong and know more about the city past and then present!!!
Had a great walking tour with Carrie! She was full of interesting information and great at answering all our questions.
Hao did an amazing job, we had a lot of fun and learned many new things about Beijing and china! Thank you for the opportunity!!
We enjoyed this tour which gave insight into Beijing history, hutong living and much more. We saw another pretty part of the city.
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