From The Great Wall To Kashgar – 12 Days

Begin at Tiananmen Square, one of the largest public squares in the world, ringed by monumental buildings. Your guide points out the Monument to the People’s Heroes at its centre and the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall, where, if it is open on the day, you can join the line of visitors filing past the preserved body of the former leader.

Walk through the Gate of Heavenly Peace into the Forbidden City, the palace of twenty-four Ming and Qing emperors and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Cross vast courtyards to the great ceremonial halls, then explore the smaller inner courts where the imperial family lived, as your guide brings palace life and its strict rituals to life.

Leave by the north gate and climb the short path up Jingshan Park, an artificial hill once part of the imperial grounds. From the pavilion at the top the golden roofs of the Forbidden City stretch out below you, one of the classic views of Beijing.

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 most recognisable buildings in China, and the surrounding park is full of local residents practising tai chi, singing, dancing and playing cards.

Drive out of the city to the Great Wall. Built and rebuilt over many centuries, most of the sections you can walk today date from the Ming dynasty, climbing over steep ridges between watchtowers.

Walk along the wall at your own pace, stopping in the towers to look out over the hills, before returning to Beijing for an evening at leisure.

Start the day in the hutongs, the narrow alleys of grey-brick courtyard homes that once covered much of old Beijing. Your guide leads you to the breakfast stalls the neighbourhood relies on, where you can try steamed buns, soy milk, fried dough sticks and other everyday favourites while life goes on around you.

Your driver takes you to the station for the high-speed train to Xi’an, a journey of about four and a half to six hours across the North China Plain. Watch the farmland and towns flash by from your seat.

Your Xi’an guide meets you and takes you to your hotel in Xi’an, a city that served as China’s capital for many dynasties and was the eastern starting point of the Silk Road.

Drive out to the Terracotta Army, part of the burial complex of Qin Shi Huang, the ruler who first 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, archers and horses, no two faces alike. Your guide explains how they were made and what they reveal about the first empire.

After dark, head to the Great Tang All Day Mall, a lively area built in the style of the Tang dynasty, when Xi’an, then called Chang’an, was one of the largest cities in the world. Along its lantern-lit boulevard, street performers in Tang costume put on music, dance and living-statue acts, shared with the many other visitors who come to stroll here in the evening.

Walk through Muslim Street, the heart of Xi’an’s Hui Muslim community, where families have run food stalls for generations. Smell the cumin and lamb skewers, watch noodles being pulled and persimmon cakes fried, and taste whatever catches your eye.

Step into a historic courtyard house in the quarter for a shadow puppet performance. Chinese shadow puppetry, listed by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage, uses finely cut and painted leather figures moved behind a lit screen to tell old stories to music. Afterwards you can take a closer look at the puppets.

Your driver takes you to the airport for the flight to Dunhuang, roughly two and a half hours. Your guide meets you on arrival and takes you to your hotel in Dunhuang, an oasis that was the last great staging post inside China for caravans heading west.

Visit the Mogao Grottoes, a UNESCO World Heritage Site where hundreds of cave temples were cut into a cliff and painted between the 4th and 14th centuries. Pilgrims, merchants and local rulers paid for them as acts of devotion, and the surviving murals and statues show Buddhas, heavenly musicians and scenes of daily life along the Silk Road. A specialist guide opens a selection of caves for you.

As the heat fades, head to the Singing Sand Dunes, so named for the low hum the sand makes as it shifts. Climb a ridge for the view over the dunes, then walk down to Crescent Moon Spring, a small curved pool of water with a pavilion on its bank, that has survived among the sand for centuries.

Drive to the Yulin Caves, a smaller site carved into the walls of a river gorge. Far fewer visitors make it here than to Mogao, and some of the murals, especially from the Western Xia period, are among the best preserved in the Dunhuang area.

Continue by private car to Liuyuan railway station and take the high-speed train to Turpan, roughly three and a half hours across the stony desert, with the Tianshan Mountains on the horizon.

Your Turpan guide meets you and takes you to your hotel in Turpan, an oasis of vineyards in one of the lowest depressions on earth.

Explore the ancient city of Gaochang, once a kingdom’s capital and a busy stop on the Silk Road, where the monk Xuanzang is said to have preached on his way to India. Its eroded earthen walls rise from the desert floor below the red ridges of the Flaming Mountains.

Visit the Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves, Buddhist cave temples cut into a cliff above a river gorge. Many murals were lost or removed, but those that remain still show the skill of the painters who worked here.

Drive into the Tuyugou Valley to the village of Tuyoq, with its mud-brick houses, grape trellises and lanes winding toward green fields. Here you visit a Uyghur family at home, share tea and fruit, and hear about village life, before returning to Turpan.

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

Walk through the Jiaohe Ruins, an ancient city built on a narrow plateau between two riverbeds. Much of it was carved into the earth rather than built up, and its streets, temples and houses still stand in outline. It is part of the UNESCO-listed Silk Roads network.

Drive to Urumqi airport, about two and a half hours, and fly to Kashgar. Your guide meets you and takes you to your hotel in Kashgar.

Visit the Id Kah Mosque, known locally as Idigar, the largest mosque in China, whose yellow gatehouse looks over the main square. Then drive to the Abakh Khoja Tomb, a family mausoleum covered in green and blue glazed tiles, linked in legend to Iparhan, known in Chinese as the Fragrant Concubine.

Spend the afternoon in Kashgar Old City, a warren of earth-coloured lanes where coppersmiths, hat makers, bakers and carpenters still work in open-fronted shops. Your guide takes you to watch naan being slapped onto the walls of clay ovens, and to a teahouse to rest over a pot of tea.

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