Peaks, Pandas And Emperors For Teens – 14 Days

Start on the Bund, the riverside promenade of banks and trading houses from the city’s treaty port years, facing the towers of Pudong. Then head into the old town to Yu Garden, a Ming dynasty garden of rockeries, carp ponds and zigzag bridges built to confuse evil spirits.

Visit a silk workshop to see how cocoons are unravelled into thread and stretched into quilts, a good hands-on stop for teenagers. After lunch at a local restaurant, wander through Fuxing Park, where locals dance, play cards and practise tai chi.

Walk through Bugaoli, a lane of shikumen, the stone-gated houses that once housed most of Shanghai, and browse a neighbourhood market. Finish at Shanghai Museum East in Pudong, the newer branch of the city’s great museum, with superb collections of bronzes, ceramics and painting.

Drive out of the city to Zhujiajiao, a canal town on the edge of Shanghai whose streets of Ming and Qing era houses, shops and arched stone bridges grew rich on the rice and cloth trade.

Glide along the canals on a wooden boat, sculled by a local boatman, and look up at the old shopfronts and bridges from the water. Lunch is at a local restaurant in the town.

Return towards the city for the evening flight to Zhangjiajie in Hunan Province. Your driver meets you on arrival and takes you to your hotel in Zhangjiajie.

Enter Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, part of the Wulingyuan Scenic Area, a UNESCO World Heritage Site with thousands of quartz-sandstone pillars rising from the forest. Ride the Bailong Elevator, a glass lift built onto the face of a cliff, for a fast and memorable climb to the top.

Walk the trails of Yuanjiajie, where the pillars stand so close and tall that they inspired the floating mountains in the film Avatar. Continue to Tianzi Mountain for wide views across a sea of peaks.

Descend into the Ten Mile Gallery, a long valley lined with rock formations that locals have given names and stories over generations. It is an easy walk, or a short ride on the small sightseeing train if legs are tired.

Visit Huanglong Cave, or Yellow Dragon Cave, a vast limestone cave system with underground halls, a river and towering stalagmites. Your guide explains how water carved these chambers over immense spans of time.

Drive to the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon and hike down through the forest along the canyon floor, past waterfalls and pools. The headline moment is the glass bridge, stretching high across the gorge, where you can look straight down through your feet.

Return to your hotel in Zhangjiajie for a well-earned evening at leisure.

Board the cable car from the edge of Zhangjiajie city to Tianmen Mountain, a long, steep ride over villages and ridges that ends high on the summit plateau. Look out for Tianmen Cave, the huge natural arch that gives the mountain its name, Heaven’s Gate.

Walk the cliff-side paths and step onto the glass walkway bolted to the rock face, with a sheer drop below. After lunch, take your time on the summit trails.

Transfer to the airport for your flight to Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province. Your guide meets you on arrival and takes you to your hotel in Chengdu.

Drive into the mountains of western Sichuan to Shenshuping, a panda base in the Wolong area, close to the pandas’ natural habitat. Meet the keepers and change into overalls for your volunteer programme.

Help with the daily routine: clearing enclosures, carrying fresh bamboo and preparing panda bread under the keepers’ guidance. Lunch is at the base.

Watch the pandas feed and climb, and learn about the breeding and conservation work that has helped the giant panda’s numbers recover. You receive a certificate before driving back to your hotel in Chengdu.

Stroll through Wangjiang Park, a riverside park planted with many varieties of bamboo and linked with Xue Tao, a celebrated woman poet of the Tang dynasty. Climb up to Chongli Pavilion, the River Viewing Tower, for views over the Jin River, and enjoy a cup of tea among Chengdu’s famously unhurried locals.

After lunch, your guide takes you to the station for the high-speed train to Xi’an, about four hours through the Qinling Mountains. Your driver meets you on arrival and takes you to your hotel in Xi’an.

Drive about an hour east of the city to the Terracotta Army, the thousands of life-size clay warriors buried to guard the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor to unite China. Found by farmers digging a well in the 1970s, the site is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and no two faces are quite the same.

Return to the city for lunch, then explore the Muslim Quarter, home for centuries to the Hui community. Wander its lanes with your guide, trying hand-pulled noodles, flatbread soaked in lamb broth or sweet persimmon cakes, as the lanes fill with the smell of grilled lamb and spices.

Climb onto the Xi’an City Wall, the best-preserved city wall in China, built in the Ming dynasty and running for about fourteen kilometres around the old centre. Hire bicycles and ride along the broad top, past gate towers and watchtowers, with the city spread out on either side.

After lunch, board the high-speed train to Beijing, a journey of several hours across the plains of northern China. Your guide meets you on arrival and takes you to your hotel in Beijing.

Enter the Forbidden City, home to the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties for nearly five centuries and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Walk through its great halls and courtyards towards the private quarters, where your guide brings palace life, intrigue and ceremony to life.

Visit the Temple of Heaven, where emperors came to pray for good harvests, and admire the round, triple-roofed Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. Then explore the hutongs, the narrow alleys of grey courtyard houses that were once the fabric of old Beijing, and see how families still live in them today.

Drive about two and a half hours northeast of Beijing to Jinshanling, a Ming dynasty section of the Great Wall that runs along steep ridges studded with watchtowers. Much of it is restored, with rougher stretches beyond, and crowds are usually light.

Hike from tower to tower with your guide, at a pace that suits the family, stopping for photographs of the wall snaking away over the hills. Lunch is at a local restaurant near the wall.

Drive back to Beijing, arriving in time for an evening at leisure.

Today is at leisure. Explore the streets around your hotel, or browse Xiushui Street, the indoor market known for silk, clothing and souvenirs, where bargaining is part of the fun.

If the family still has energy, your guide can arrange bicycles for a ride through the hutongs.

Enjoy a last breakfast at your hotel. Your guide and driver take you to the airport for your flight home.