Catherine Lu was our private guide in Beijing and I highly recommend her. We were in Beijing for 4 nights in March -- she arranged all of our trips, day trips, transportation -- she met us at the airport and structured our visit to Beijing and arranged for return transportation to the airport. She is highly educated and knowledgeable about the history and culture of China and of Beijing and excited to present it to you. She is flexible and very child friendly as the smiles of our 11 year old daughter can well atttest in the photographs we took.. Catherine has a website which I would encourage you to view -- she has many photos of past tours she has led, large and small -- you can't fake the smiles on children! We went to Tienanmen Square, the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, Ming Tombs, among other sites. One of the highlights of our trip was a meal at a restaurant about a mile from the Forbidden City, a short taxi ride. The food was so delicious that we asked to return the next day for another meal. Catherine arrived promptly after breakfast and stayed with us until past dinner time, until she brought us back to the hotel. She arranged for a van and driver at reasonable rates. Another highlight was breakfast at a restaurant in a nearby (walking distance from the hotel) hutong -- breakfast for 4 (including Catherine) was $4 in total, which included 4 bottles of water. We learned a lot about China, its history, its culture from this very knowledgeable and dedicated woman. I would highly recommend her to anyone needing a private guide in Beijing, or in assistance in arranging tours in other cities. She recommended a guide for us in Shanghai (David) who I reviewed separately in another review.
