Sichuan For Families: Pandas, Dinosaurs And A Giant Buddha – 7 Days

Head to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding early, when the pandas are most active and busy with their breakfast bamboo. Walk the shaded paths between enclosures, see the younger pandas tumbling and climbing, and learn how breeding and conservation have helped the species recover.

Lunch is a Sichuan hotpot at a local restaurant, a bubbling pot of broth, mild or fiery, where everyone cooks their own meat and vegetables at the table.

Visit the Chengdu Museum, which traces the city’s long history through bronzes, pottery and a lively collection of shadow puppets.

Watch Sichuan Opera, a show shared with other guests, famous for bian lian, or face changing, in which performers swap painted masks in a split second.

Drive south by private car to Zigong. Visit the Zigong Dinosaur Museum, built over a fossil site at Dashanpu where huge numbers of Jurassic dinosaur bones have been found, with skeletons displayed where they lay.

Visit the Shenhai Salt Well, a working well from the Qing dynasty with a tall wooden derrick, once among the deepest wells in the world. See how brine was drawn up and boiled into salt, the trade that made Zigong wealthy.

Dinner is at a local restaurant, a chance to try Zigong’s own salt-gang cooking, known for its bold, spicy flavours.

Visit the Zigong Salt Industry Museum, set in a magnificent guild hall built by merchants in the Qing dynasty, with carved stone, sweeping roofs and exhibits on centuries of salt drilling.

Visit the Zhang Fei Temple, a richly decorated guild temple dedicated to Zhang Fei, a general of the Three Kingdoms period who became a patron figure for local tradesmen. Lunch is at a local restaurant.

Drive about two hours to Leshan and check in to your hotel in Leshan. Dinner is at a local restaurant this evening.

Visit Luocheng Ancient Town, whose main street is shaped like a boat and lined with covered walkways where locals sip tea and play mahjong.

Ride the Jiayang steam train, a narrow-gauge line built to carry coal and now one of the last steam passenger railways in regular use. It puffs slowly through hills, villages and rice terraces, and children love it.

Stop at Huangcun, where you can visit the old coal mine and learn what life was like for the miners who worked this valley.

Visit the Leshan Giant Buddha, a seated Maitreya Buddha carved into a red sandstone cliff during the Tang dynasty at the meeting of three rivers. It is the largest stone Buddha in the world and part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site with nearby Mount Emei.

Walk down the steep cliff stairway beside the statue to its feet, or, if you prefer, see the Buddha from a boat on the Minjiang River. Lunch is at a local restaurant.

Drive about two hours back to Chengdu and check in to your hotel in Chengdu.

Enjoy breakfast and some time at leisure before your flight.

Your guide takes you to the airport for your flight home.