The first three hours
Get your bearings before you book anything else
Everything worth seeing inside the wall fits into a rectangle you can cross north-to-south in about an hour on foot. Do this walk on your first afternoon and the whole city stops being abstract: the towers, the grid, and the food street all snap into one map.
Stop 1 · Attraction
Start at South Gate (Yongningmen). Climb the wall for ten minutes just to see the shape of the city — a rectangle, gates at the compass points, the Bell Tower dead centre. Don't commit to the full 14 km circuit today.
Stop 2 · Attraction
Walk north down South Gate avenue. The Bell Tower is the point every main street in the old city radiates from; circle it at street level, then use the underpass to cross. Dusk floodlighting is the best photo window.
Stop 3 · Attraction
Two minutes west, the Drum Tower's terrace line looks straight down into the Muslim Quarter — that's tomorrow's walk. Take the photo, note the direction, move on.
Stop 4 · Street
Duck into Beiyuanmen for a first look only. The grill smoke is best after dark; today just learn the gate, taste one thing, and get out before the souvenir stalls eat your afternoon.
Stop 5 · Temple
The quiet payoff: a Ming-era courtyard mosque hiding behind the food street. First proof of this city's rule — the sights sit inside each other, not beside each other.