13-Day China Journey: From Imperial Capitals to the Li River and Shanghai’s Skyline

Arrive in Beijing

Meet your arrival contact at the airport, then continue with your driver to the hotel. The meeting instructions will be in your travel documents.

Transfer to your hotel

Travel to your Beijing hotel and settle in after check-in. This will be your base for three nights, giving you time for the palace and Great Wall visits without changing hotels.

Ease into the city

Rest, unpack or take a short walk near the hotel if you feel ready. Dinner is yours to arrange, with no scheduled sightseeing to work around on this first evening.

Inside the Forbidden City

Enter the palace complex and make your way through its gateways and courtyards, pausing before the ceremonial halls. The Forbidden City housed the Ming and Qing courts, and its layout offers a way into the world they governed: the great spaces of the Outer Court expressed imperial authority, while the Inner Court accommodated the imperial household and its daily affairs. Your guide connects these spaces as you walk, drawing attention to the scale of the courtyards and the repeated arrangement of buildings. There is time to look closely and ask questions about life behind the palace walls.

Entry is subject to securing a reservation for your travel date. Any change to this core visit is agreed before booking.

Along the palace walls and moat

Outside the complex, follow a short stretch beside the palace walls and moat. After the enclosed sequence of courtyards, the view opens out: long walls, water and palace rooflines bring the scale of this imperial enclosure into focus. It is a chance to look back at the buildings as part of Beijing’s cityscape and pause for photographs along the way.

An afternoon at your own pace

After the palace visit and moat-side walk, return to your hotel or continue exploring independently. Keep the afternoon as light as you need after a morning spent on foot.

Beijing to Mutianyu

Travel out of Beijing to Mutianyu, in the hills north of the city. The day centres on the wall, leaving space for the walk itself and pauses along the way.

Walk the Great Wall

Ride the enclosed cable car up to the wall, then follow the ramparts as they rise and fall with the ridgeline. Mutianyu is a Ming-dynasty section built to help defend the capital; its watchtowers and battlements give that history a physical presence. Look at how the towers command the surrounding slopes and how the walls follow the terrain. Your guide puts the defences in context, with the walking section chosen around your pace and the conditions. After the walk, return by enclosed cable car. Steps and changes in level remain part of the visit.

Admission, the scenic shuttle and round-trip enclosed cable car are included. Cable-car operation is subject to weather and operating conditions.

Return to Beijing

Return to Beijing after the visit. The evening is free for dinner and a quiet finish to the day, with another night at the same hotel before tomorrow’s rail journey.

Transfer to the station

Check out of your Beijing hotel and transfer to the railway station, allowing time for security checks and boarding before the high-speed train to Xi’an.

Train to Xi’an

Board the high-speed train to Xi’an. Settle into your seat, watch the landscape from the window or use the journey to read and rest between the two cities.

Arrive in Xi’an

Meet your onward transfer at the station and continue to the hotel for a three-night stay. Once you have checked in, the evening is yours to find dinner nearby and get ready for tomorrow’s Terracotta Army visit.

Travel to the Terracotta Army

Leave Xi’an for the Terracotta Army site. Today’s visit focuses on the army made for Qin Shi Huang, China’s first emperor, with time to consider both the scale of the undertaking and the figures themselves.

The Terracotta Army

Take in the scale of the excavation pits, then turn your attention to individual soldiers: the modelling of a face, a hairstyle, the folds of a robe or the plates of armour. These details offer clues to the army’s ranks and roles, as well as the skill of its makers. Your guide places the figures within the first emperor’s vast burial complex and explains how they were assembled from clay parts and once finished in vivid colour. Looking closely reveals the craftsmanship behind the ranks, alongside the challenges of conserving these fragile finds.

Back to Xi’an

Travel back to your Xi’an hotel after the visit. Leave the remaining time open for a meal, a rest or an independent walk, before tomorrow’s introduction to the city wall and Muslim Quarter.

Walk the city wall

Walk a section of Xi’an’s city wall, with the streets of the old city on one side and the wider modern city beyond. The surviving circuit took shape in the Ming dynasty on earlier foundations, placing this visit in a much later chapter than yesterday’s Qin army. Along the broad ramparts, your guide explains how the gate towers, defensive openings and moat worked together. Pause to trace the city’s shape from above and see how the wall still marks its centre. The walk covers a manageable section of the circuit, with time to stop and look.

The lanes of the Muslim Quarter

Continue into the public lanes of the Muslim Quarter, home to Xi’an’s Hui Muslim community. Here the city’s history is also carried in food: bread, beef and mutton feature in local dishes, including paomo, in which pieces of flatbread are soaked in broth. Walk past shops and food stalls as your guide introduces the neighbourhood and its links with the trading history of Chang’an, the earlier capital. Take time to browse and notice the work around the counters. You can choose what to try along the way; any food purchases are paid for separately.

Your last evening in Xi’an

The guided walk ends with the evening left open. Stay out for dinner independently or return to the hotel and pack at leisure; tomorrow the journey turns south towards Guilin.

South to Guilin

Transfer to Xi’an Airport and fly to Guilin. Today is set aside for travelling south, with the schedule built around the flight and time to settle in after arrival.

An overnight stop in Guilin

Your driver meets you on arrival and takes you to the hotel. Stay in Guilin for one night before tomorrow’s journey along the Li River to Yangshuo.

An unhurried first evening

Keep the evening simple after the journey. Depending on your arrival time and energy, take a short walk near the hotel, find somewhere for dinner or rest before tomorrow’s day on the river.

Board the Li River cruise

Leave your Guilin hotel for the departure pier and board a shared 3-star Li River cruise towards Yangshuo. Your travel documents give the boarding details and explain how your luggage will travel to the next hotel.

Limestone peaks and river bends

Watch the limestone peaks gather into clusters and open into separate towers as the boat follows the Li River. Their steep sides and varied outlines are part of Guilin’s karst landscape, shaped over time by water acting on the rock. Each bend brings a different arrangement of hills, riverbanks and vegetation into view. Let your eye move between the distant ridgelines and the details closer to the water; the changing perspective is much of the pleasure of travelling this stretch by boat.

This is a shared, scheduled 3-star cruise. Your travel documents give the seating, pier and luggage details. Any onboard meal is separate unless listed in your quotation.

Settle into Yangshuo

Transfer from the arrival pier to your hotel and unpack for three nights. The rest of the day is open, giving you time to settle in after the cruise and get a feel for your surroundings.

Fields, villages and limestone hills

Walk beside the Yulong River and through the surrounding countryside, taking time to notice the landscape at a smaller scale. Steep limestone hills rise above flatter ground used for fields, village homes and local lanes. As you walk, your guide draws attention to the edges of cultivated plots, the layout of the settlements and how homes and fields sit alongside the river. Stop for photographs or to ask questions; seeing this landscape on foot allows you to notice details that were harder to pick out from yesterday’s boat.

An afternoon at your own pace

Return to your hotel after the morning walk. You might spend the afternoon reading and resting, or take a short independent outing nearby. With another full day in Yangshuo ahead, there is time to decide as you go.

Guiding and transport finish after the morning outing. The afternoon is independent.

Room to follow your own interests

Wake without a sightseeing schedule and choose how much you want to do. Stay at your accommodation with a book, take a short walk or spend some time exploring Yangshuo independently.

No guide or vehicle is on standby today. Independent activities, meals and transport are at your own expense.

Your last evening in Yangshuo

For an independent dinner, you might look for Yangshuo beer fish, a local speciality, or keep things simple near your hotel. Spend the rest of the evening as you please before tomorrow’s journey to Shanghai.

Yangshuo to Guilin Airport

Check out of your Yangshuo hotel and travel to Guilin Airport. Your departure time is planned around the flight, allowing for the road journey, check-in and airport procedures.

Fly to Shanghai

Fly from Guilin to Shanghai, the final stop on your journey. After three nights among Yangshuo’s limestone hills, the change of setting brings you back to city life.

Settle into Shanghai

Your driver meets you on arrival and takes you to the hotel. Once you have checked in, find a meal nearby, take a short walk or rest after the journey.

The Bund: a city built on trade

Begin on the Bund, where former banks and trading houses line the Huangpu River. Your guide traces how commerce shaped this waterfront, using the buildings themselves to tell the story. Look up at the rooflines, columns and decorative details, and notice the different styles chosen by the institutions that once occupied them. Across the water, the towers of Lujiazui set the older waterfront in a different light. Take time to compare the scale and outlines of the two banks: both reflect Shanghai’s trading ambitions, in very different periods of its history.

Waitanyuan and the meeting of the rivers

Continue into Waitanyuan, near the meeting of Suzhou Creek and the Huangpu River. The streets become narrower here, inviting a closer look at brickwork, carved details and windows before you look up to the varied rooflines. Your guide connects this early part of the Bund with the growth of the wider city. Restored façades also prompt a look at how Shanghai is using its historic buildings today. Follow the public streets towards the creek, where the smaller waterway joins the Huangpu beside the old waterfront.

Your last afternoon in Shanghai

With the guided walk complete, keep your final afternoon for personal interests. Revisit a favourite stretch of waterfront, browse independently or head back to your hotel before making your own plans for dinner.

Before departure

Check out of your hotel. If your flight leaves later, you may have time for a short walk nearby or a final meal before your transfer.

Transfer to the airport

Your driver takes you from the hotel to the airport for your onward flight. The pickup time and departure details are set out in your travel documents.