Capitals And Caravan Cities Of China – 13 Days

Begin at Tiananmen Square, one of the largest public squares in the world, then walk through the Gate of Heavenly Peace into the Forbidden City. Home to twenty-four emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it unfolds as a series of vast courtyards and ceremonial halls, leading to the more intimate quarters where the imperial family lived.

Drive to the Summer Palace, the imperial family’s summer retreat, also listed by UNESCO. Walk the Long Corridor, painted with thousands of scenes from history and legend, then take a boat ride across Kunming Lake for views of Longevity Hill and its temples. On the way, your guide stops at a freshwater pearl showroom, where you can see how pearls are graded.

The evening is at leisure. If you wish, your guide can arrange tickets for a kung fu show, an energetic stage performance of Chinese martial arts, shared with other guests.

Visit the Temple of Heaven, where emperors came to pray for good harvests. Its triple-roofed Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests is one of the best-known buildings in China, and in the park around it local residents gather to practise tai chi, play cards, sing and dance.

Drive north to the Mutianyu Great Wall, a restored Ming dynasty section running along forested ridges. Ride the cable car up to the wall.

Walk between watchtowers at your own pace, with the wall rising and falling over the hills in both directions, before returning to Beijing for an evening at leisure.

Your driver takes you to the airport for the flight west to Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, where you connect onto a flight to Kashgar. From the air, you cross deserts and the Tianshan Mountains, a sense of just how large China is.

Your Kashgar guide meets you and takes you to your hotel in Kashgar. For centuries this oasis was a meeting point of caravan routes from China, Central Asia and India.

Set out early on the Karakoram Highway, the mountain road that connects western China with Pakistan. It follows a river gorge into the Pamir Mountains, and the scenery grows wilder with every bend.

Arrive at Karakul Lake, a high-altitude lake whose still water reflects the snowy dome of Muztagh Ata. Walk along the shore, watch herders move their animals across the pastures and take in one of the great views of western China.

On the way back to Kashgar, stop at the Tomb of Mahmud Kashgari, the 11th-century scholar who compiled one of the earliest dictionaries of the Turkic languages. The shrine sits on a hillside above the village of Opal, shaded by trees.

Visit the Id Kah Mosque, the largest mosque in China, its yellow gatehouse facing the main square. Then continue to the Abakh Khoja Tomb, a 17th-century family mausoleum covered in green and blue glazed tiles, linked in legend to Iparhan, known as the Fragrant Concubine.

Spend time at the Sunday Bazaar, a vast market where traders sell carpets, spices, dried fruit, knives, hats and musical instruments. Your guide helps you find the best corners and order a fresh naan from a clay oven.

Your driver takes you to the airport for the flight to Urumqi. Your guide meets you and takes you to your hotel in Urumqi.

Drive into the Southern Pastures, the Nanshan, a range of grassy valleys and spruce forest in the foothills of the Tianshan Mountains. In the warmer months, Kazakh herders bring their sheep, horses and cattle up to these meadows and live in white felt yurts.

Visit a Kazakh family in their yurt, where you are welcomed with milk tea, fresh bread and dried fruit. Your host shows you how the yurt is put together and how the family lives as the seasons change.

Take a walk through the meadows and along a stream before returning to your hotel in Urumqi for an evening at leisure.

Drive by private car from Urumqi to Turpan, about two and a half hours, dropping through the mountains into one of the lowest depressions on earth. Begin at Gaochang Ancient City, the remains of a kingdom’s capital and a busy Silk Road stop, where the monk Xuanzang is said to have preached.

Visit the Astana Tombs, the cemetery of Gaochang’s residents, where the dry climate preserved murals, textiles and even mummies. Then pass beneath the Flaming Mountains, red sandstone ridges made famous in the classic novel Journey to the West.

Explore the Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Grottoes, Buddhist cave temples cut into a cliff above a gorge, and then the Tuyoq Valley, with its old Uyghur village of mud-brick houses and grape trellises. Your guide then takes you to your hotel in Turpan.

Visit the Emin Minaret, an elegant tower of patterned sun-dried brick built in the 18th century. Then see a Karez irrigation site, where hand-dug underground channels carry snowmelt from the mountains to the oasis fields.

Walk through the Jiaohe Ruins, an ancient city built on a narrow plateau between two riverbeds and carved largely into the earth. It is part of the UNESCO-listed Silk Roads network.

Drive to Urumqi airport, about two and a half hours, and fly to Xi’an. Your guide meets you on arrival and takes you to your hotel in Xi’an.

Drive east to the Terracotta Army, part of the burial complex of Qin Shi Huang, who unified China in 221 BC. Found by farmers digging a well in 1974 and listed by UNESCO in 1987, the pits hold thousands of life-size soldiers and horses, each with a face of its own.

Return to the city and walk along the Ancient City Wall, built in the Ming dynasty and one of the most complete city walls in China. Then explore Muslim Street, the lively quarter of Xi’an’s Hui community, with stalls of lamb skewers, flatbread soaked in broth and sweet persimmon cakes.

The evening is at leisure. If you wish, your guide can arrange tickets for a Tang dynasty music and dance show, shared with other guests.

Join a calligraphy class at a local art museum, where a teacher shows you how to hold the brush, grind the ink and write a few characters. It is a calm, absorbing hour and a good insight into one of China’s most respected arts.

Visit the Hanyang Tomb, the mausoleum of Emperor Jing of the Western Han dynasty. Thousands of small clay figures of servants, officials and animals lie in the pits, and an underground museum lets you walk on glass above the excavations.

Your driver takes you to the airport for the flight to Shanghai. Your guide meets you and takes you to your hotel in Shanghai.

Begin at the Shanghai Museum, home to one of the finest collections of Chinese art in the country, from ancient bronzes and ceramics to paintings and calligraphy.

Walk through Yu Garden, a classical garden laid out in the Ming dynasty, with rockeries, ponds, pavilions and zigzag bridges. Then browse the busy lanes of the Yuyuan market around it, full of snacks and souvenir shops.

Finish on the Bund, the riverside promenade lined with grand buildings from Shanghai’s days as a treaty port. Across the Huangpu River rise the towers of Pudong. In the evening, if you wish, your guide can arrange tickets for an acrobatics show, shared with other guests.

Enjoy a final breakfast at your hotel. At the agreed time, your driver and guide take you to the airport for your international flight.