--- title: "River First, Then Stone" description: "21 days from the Great Wall to a sandstone pillar forest taking the long way" type: "tour" route_id: "china-grand-corridor-21-days" total_days: 21 price: 6970 highlights: ["Beijing", "Xi'an", "Chengdu", "Chongqing", "Yichang", "Zhangjiajie", "Shanghai"] url: "https://www.lyriktrip.com/tours/china-grand-corridor-21-days" canonical_url: "https://www.lyriktrip.com/tours/china-grand-corridor-21-days" locale: "en-US" alternates: {"en-US":"https://www.lyriktrip.com/tours/china-grand-corridor-21-days","en-GB":"https://www.lyriktrip.com/en-GB/tours/china-grand-corridor-21-days","zh-CN":"https://www.lyriktrip.com/zh-CN/tours/china-grand-corridor-21-days","zh-TW":"https://www.lyriktrip.com/zh-TW/tours/china-grand-corridor-21-days","de-DE":"https://www.lyriktrip.com/de-DE/tours/china-grand-corridor-21-days","fr-FR":"https://www.lyriktrip.com/fr-FR/tours/china-grand-corridor-21-days","es-ES":"https://www.lyriktrip.com/es-ES/tours/china-grand-corridor-21-days","it-IT":"https://www.lyriktrip.com/it-IT/tours/china-grand-corridor-21-days","x-default":"https://www.lyriktrip.com/tours/china-grand-corridor-21-days"} --- # River First, Then Stone 21 days from the Great Wall to a sandstone pillar forest taking the long way Nine stops, one corridor. Terracotta warriors, pandas, an irrigation works still running after 2,200 years, and the Bund, with English-speaking guides city by city. - Moderate. Every major climb on this route has a cable car or a lift, three easy days are built into the twenty-one, and at both glass sections in Zhangjiajie a solid-floor path runs alongside. ## Overview Twenty-one days is enough time to watch one idea play all the way out. First the walls: what people build when they want to hold a line, in Beijing and then in Xi'an, where the wall is a closed ring instead of a ridge. Then the water: an irrigation works from the 3rd century BC that has never stopped running, and the river it was built to split. Then the stone: a forest of quartz sandstone pillars that running water cut out of a plateau, which you walk on top of, beside and underneath across four nights. Six cities, three or more nights in each of the big ones, three easy days on purpose. By the second week you'll notice you have started reading the ground instead of photographing it. — LyrikTrip travel designers Every LyrikTrip journey begins with a conversation. Tell us your dates, who is coming and how much walking suits your party. First reply within four hours; a clear price for your dates within one business day. On this route we will also tell you plainly where the Yangtze procurement stands before you are asked for anything, because until it lands there is nothing here for you to book. ## Summary - Route ID: china-grand-corridor-21-days - Duration: 21 days / 20 nights - Starting price: $6,970 - Status: active - Highlights: Beijing, Xi'an, Chengdu, Chongqing, Yichang, Zhangjiajie, Shanghai - Cover image: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/4ilhRGUF.webp ## Hero tags - private - From 1 guest - Max: no fixed limit ## Highlight notes - Nine stops, one corridor. Terracotta warriors, pandas, an irrigation works still running after 2,200 years, and the Bund, with English-speaking guides city by city. - 21 days from the Great Wall to a forest of sandstone pillars. See the long version of China. ## Selling points - Ride the cable car up to the Great Wall at Mutianyu and walk the restored towers along the ridge: your first day on this route with nothing else in it, and the only climbing your legs do is between watchtowers. - Ride the top of the Xi'an City Wall on a bicycle that is already in your price: in Beijing the wall was a line across the country, here it is a closed ring around a city, and you go around it. - Stand on an irrigation works finished in the 3rd century BC that still waters the Chengdu plain today, then spend the afternoon on the Taoist mountain above it: this is the day the whole route turns from walls to water. - Ride a metro train straight through the middle of a residential tower at Liziba: a city built where the hills left no flat ground, so the trains go through the buildings instead of around them. - See the sandstone pillars from three angles across four nights in Zhangjiajie: from the platform above them, from the cliff walkway beside them, and from the streambed underneath. - End on the Bund after dark with your guide beside you: the old waterfront on one bank, the Pudong towers on the other, a treaty port looking at what it turned into. - Unpack once for four nights in Chengdu and once again for four in Zhangjiajie: nine hotel changes would fit in twenty-one days, and this plan uses six. ## City highlights - Beijing (3 days): Land, and let the country wait - Image: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/aT8MIFX0.webp - Xi'an (3 days): Square, altar, museum, train - Image: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/BMMnK9X6.webp - Chengdu (4 days): Over the Qinling - Image: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/6PbMgR6W.webp - Chongqing (3 days): A city with no flat ground - Image: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/e1N5p9oQ.webp - Yichang (1 days): The narrow part - Image: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/iHkhCTng.webp - Zhangjiajie (4 days): Off the water, onto the train - Image: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/Ff62c4Dt.webp - Shanghai (3 days): Out of the mountains, onto the estuary - Image: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/cI7Vs1XV.webp ## Experiences Nine stops, one corridor. Terracotta warriors, pandas, an irrigation works still running after 2,200 years, and the Bund, with English-speaking guides city by city. - The Forbidden City (Beijing): the palace the Ming and Qing courts ran the country from, finished in 1420 and lived in for five centuries. You walk one axis: the ceremonial halls, the living quarters behind them, the imperial garden, then out through the north gate to Jingshan. Entry is by timed reservation and the booking system sits poorly with overseas mobile numbers, so your quote states in writing who books your slot and by when. The admission itself is in the base price. Audio guides and guides hired inside the palace are not. Guests regularly find the site tiring, so the route is cut to that single line with places to sit, and no departure puts this day on a Monday, when the palace closes. - Subtitle: the palace the Ming and Qing courts ran the country from, finished in 1420 and lived in for five centuries. - Tags: Heritage - Host: Beijing, Beijing Lens — Imperial capital and Great Wall - Access: the palace the Ming and Qing courts ran the country from, finished in 1420 and lived in for five centuries. You walk one axis: the ceremonial halls, the living quarters behind them, the imperial garden, then out through the north gate to Jingshan. Entry is by timed reservation and the booking system sits poorly with overseas mobile numbers, so your quote states in writing who books your slot and by when. The admission itself is in the base price. Audio guides and guides hired inside the palace are not. Guests regularly find the site tiring, so the route is cut to that single line with places to sit, and no departure puts this day on a Monday, when the palace closes. - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/7f313a6dab74.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/8a6cdb9ca2b9.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/de8d1138706b.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/cb45218f2b95.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/08a2b46a7206.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/43c9d4d18be6.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/49598606918a.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/17cfe569ced7.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/aff552490ca6.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/db0255c2930c.jpg - Jingshan Park (Beijing): Jingshan Park offers one of the best classic views across the Forbidden City rooftops. - Subtitle: A hilltop view over imperial Beijing - Tags: Viewpoint - Host: Beijing, Beijing Lens — Imperial capital and Great Wall - Access: A short climb rewards travelers with a strong city overview. - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/408fc381c4b4.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/7f313a6dab74.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/6a3ff539ffc8.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/2c700baa4e73.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/00decb026e42.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/51ec43ea0513.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/9604ef61c628.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/7dc03e9310a1.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/964e96f11238.jpg - Mutianyu Great Wall (Beijing): A well-restored Great Wall section with open views and easier walking conditions for first-time visitors. - Subtitle: A classic Great Wall section near Beijing - Tags: Great Wall - Host: Beijing, Beijing Lens — Imperial capital and Great Wall - Access: A polished Great Wall experience with flexible cable car or walking options. - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/f6c07b2f8772.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/3a661e194c2f.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/1b0f83ddd1e5.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/7207d6532c2f.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/e88879531691.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/926d916b9408.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/91465599744f.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/a720fb1678e6.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/608cdc21a04d.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/9b968ec44131.jpg - Tian'anmen Square (Beijing): Tian'anmen Square introduces the scale and symbolism of modern Chinese public space. - Subtitle: Beijing's monumental civic landmark - Tags: Landmark - Host: Beijing, Beijing Lens — Imperial capital and Great Wall - Access: A central orientation stop before or after the Forbidden City. - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/b6a275c3e50d.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/e544ca01550e.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/b85b763e11cd.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/a724165b0cc6.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/410246e2d66a.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/600867e7a2ef.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/cd9c3a758365.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/86b6ca981b8d.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/50c2c4037905.jpg - Temple of Heaven (Beijing): Temple of Heaven combines Ming dynasty ritual architecture with Beijing's lively park culture. - Subtitle: An imperial ritual site with local life - Tags: Culture - Host: Beijing, Beijing Lens — Imperial capital and Great Wall - Access: Pairs grand ceremonial architecture with everyday local morning activity. - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/0d9ea5fe76e1.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/db9b46f1b9cf.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/c545d9594e74.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/dc39cfe33b0d.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/359ba00d37d0.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/b538bb2aa834.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/6d40f9e82d6b.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/212c0e2ea8c8.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/7bbec6cd7e80.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/cd8da061f42b.jpg - NMC: One Room for Nine Days (Beijing): the national collection on the east side of the square: bronzes, ceramics, Buddhist figures, calligraphy. Two hours here puts the objects behind the last nine days into one room, which is why it sits on the day you leave Beijing. Entry is by timed reservation and the system sits poorly with overseas mobile numbers, so your quote states in writing who books it and by when. Admission is in the base price; audio guides and guides hired inside are not. - Subtitle: the national collection on the east side of the square: bronzes, ceramics, Buddhist figures, calligraphy. - Tags: Museum - Host: Beijing, Beijing Lens — Imperial capital and Great Wall - Access: the national collection on the east side of the square: bronzes, ceramics, Buddhist figures, calligraphy. Two hours here puts the objects behind the last nine days into one room, which is why it sits on the day you leave Beijing. Entry is by timed reservation and the system sits poorly with overseas mobile numbers, so your quote states in writing who books it and by when. Admission is in the base price; audio guides and guides hired inside are not. - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/1cf05dc82e49.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/d076400ad86d.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/55ab6f174707.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/dcce08639678.jpg - Terracotta Army: Scale and Ambition (Xi'an): the excavation halls outside Xi'an holding the underground army of Qin Shi Huang, China's first emperor, and one of the country's most significant archaeological finds. You look down into the pits at ranked columns of soldiers: individual faces, armor by rank, formations still legible after two millennia of burial. Your guide teaches you to read them: which are officers, which are archers, what the formation was for. Why it rewards a slow visit: the scale reads in one glance, the craftsmanship only up close. - Subtitle: the excavation halls outside Xi'an holding the underground army of Qin Shi - Tags: Heritage - Host: Xi'an, Xi'an Lens — Warriors and ancient capital - Access: Essential Xi'an access to one of China's most recognized archaeological sites. - Images: https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1528866310106-4459b39622ed?q=80&w=2064&auto=format&fit=crop&ixlib=rb-4.1.0&ixid=M3wxMjA3fDB8MHxwaG90by1wYWdlfHx8fGVufDB8fHx8fA%3D%3D, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/70bc50b897e9.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/788c1d294602.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/d1bf545bf0ba.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/8ff4c8890b77.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/9b2f4e2d90b4.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/ed2c5f141848.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/4cd4eb7405cc.jpg - Xi'an Ancient City Wall Cycling (Xi'an): You go up and ride — gray brick under the wheels, the old grid inside the wall on one hand, the modern city outside it on the other. The full circuit is about 14 km; ride the whole loop, a stretch, or walk part of it. You set your own pace — the gates have ramps, the surface is brick, and there is no traffic on top. The hire time counted in and any charge past it are stated in writing in your quote. This is the longest unsheltered section on the route, and it converts to a walked section when weather or stamina calls for it; November and December departures have the cold-weather arrangement written into the quote. It is also the clearest lesson in Chinese city planning you will get on this trip — old lanes inside the wall, towers without. - Subtitle: one of the most complete surviving ancient city walls in China, wide enough on top to cycle two abreast, still ringed around the old center. Admission and bike hire are in the base price. - Tags: Cycling - Host: Xi'an, Xi'an Lens — Warriors and ancient capital - Access: Active heritage experience on one of China's best-preserved city walls. - Images: https://ak-d.tripcdn.com/images/0353012000p9q9h7p45A9_C_1080_540_Q80.jpg_.webp?_fr=wc, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/daf832e303d0.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/8f7c7a922b33.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/f864b69ac4b1.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/9c4dc5e6e575.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/b69829f31585.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/1170df991f6f.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/ad143f00bca6.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/dabb4f7b21b8.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/6c4bc5467067.jpg - Giant Wild Goose Pagoda grounds (Xi'an): the temple grounds around the brick pagoda raised to hold the sutras a Tang-dynasty monk brought back overland from India, on the road the Silk Road traffic used. Grounds entry is included and the visit is a morning one. Climbing the pagoda itself is a separate ticket sold on site and is not in your price. - Subtitle: the temple grounds around the brick pagoda raised to hold the sutras a Tang-dynasty monk brought back overland from India, on the road the Silk Road traffic used. - Tags: Heritage - Host: Xi'an, Xi'an Lens — Warriors and ancient capital - Access: the temple grounds around the brick pagoda raised to hold the sutras a Tang-dynasty monk brought back overland from India, on the road the Silk Road traffic used. Grounds entry is included and the visit is a morning one. Climbing the pagoda itself is a separate ticket sold on site and is not in your price. - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/eb70bbcc8abb.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/2be95bfc5748.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/23767f72ed4f.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/f1e0cd6ae0d1.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/94916373f524.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/4269d987bac0.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/542e4f255e79.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/7d1e365a232d.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/18de0aedb419.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/2f0b6d04d98d.jpg - Bell and Drum Tower square and the Muslim Quarter by night (Xi'an): After dark, Bell and Drum Towers face off over smoky food lanes. Pulled noodles, persimmon cakes, roujiamo, and naan ovens line the Hui quarter. Your guide explains what to eat and how—walking included, tower entry extra, snacks cheap and self-paid. Centuries of Silk Road history stay edible here tonight. - Subtitle: At dusk, the timekeeping Bell and Drum Towers face off across the old center, while behind them the Hui quarter's lanes come alive. Your guide walks you through, decoding each stall—what's worth it, what's for tourists, how to eat. About two hours; tower entry extra, snacks self-paid and cheap. - Tags: City - Host: Xi'an, Xi'an Lens — Warriors and ancient capital - Access: the two towers that once kept the city's time, and behind them the lanes of the Hui neighborhood after dark, at the hour they are actually busy. Your guide walks it with you and reads the food stalls: what is worth stopping for, what is a tourist item, and how each thing is eaten. Climbing the Bell Tower or the Drum Tower is a separate on-site ticket and is not in your price; food is on your own account. - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/be2d09d79b66.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/02e10943b0b8.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/a89c8581e5c7.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/281d43f0922e.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/467e9f21253b.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/be17d6a5ce49.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/2be0c598ad8d.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/cc45951bdee2.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/68851d1cd2f1.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/40f5c954821f.jpg - Chengdu panda base (Chengdu): the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, a research and breeding center on the edge of the city. Your visit is set for the morning, the hours when the pandas are generally more active; arrive later and you mostly watch them sleep. About three hours on flat, shaded paths. Whether the park's internal shuttle is running in your month, and whether it sits inside your price, is stated in writing in your quote. - Subtitle: the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, a research and breeding center on the edge of the city. - Tags: Nature - Host: Chengdu, Chengdu Lens — Pandas and Sichuan culture - Access: the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, a research and breeding center on the edge of the city. Your visit is set for the morning, the hours when the pandas are generally more active; arrive later and you mostly watch them sleep. About three hours on flat, shaded paths. Whether the park's internal shuttle is running in your month, and whether it sits inside your price, is stated in writing in your quote. - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/5b5d1775d251.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/e650f27937d8.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/c910f00284ac.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/fb8f2b170763.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/f84d52332ce8.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/3e8e1eba78b6.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/106d08f5e8be.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/df22c3d68f08.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/cdab22c7bcf5.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/bcdc08962f93.jpg - Teahouse sitting in People's Park (Chengdu): an open-air teahouse in a public park in the middle of Chengdu, bamboo chairs at low tables under the trees. You sit down and stay: the table and one gaiwan per guest, the lidded cup China brews in, are in your price, and the kettle comes back as long as you are in the chair. Around you the park does what it does on a weekday, cards at the next table, a tuning fork ringing as an ear cleaner works his way between the tables. Roughly three hours are set aside, because sitting is the content here rather than a pause on the way somewhere. The ear cleaning and anything you eat or drink beyond that one gaiwan are on your own account. - Subtitle: an open-air teahouse in a public park in the middle of Chengdu, bamboo chairs at low tables under the trees, keep your seat and the tea keeps coming. - Tags: City - Host: Chengdu, Chengdu Lens — Pandas and Sichuan culture - Access: bamboo chairs under the trees and a gaiwan each, the lidded cup China brews in, refilled by a man with a long-spouted kettle for as long as you keep the seat. Around you: neighbors playing cards, an ear cleaner working the next table with a tuning fork. Your seat and the refills are in the base price; the snacks and the ear cleaner are your own account. A full afternoon is set aside, because sitting is the content here rather than a pause on the way somewhere. - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/77584e962219.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/2bff65c653e6.png, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/34f6c86b2f9f.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/a4c2127aee55.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/6a74f063db8f.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/a27d0f4e6224.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/89eb340e5ae2.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/3b775398e844.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/b33e34d550fa.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/3cbc8f748897.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/aa9f96490a8c.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/bb9ce7deea94.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/1ea505e390f1.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/221e3aa47210.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/43f5d1ab4117.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/12ed3c8b6eac.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/54273121005d.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/4e4bd21b9b97.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/9d549716c30b.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/9cf32f1b02e8.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/d57a819a2152.jpg - Dujiangyan River Control and Irrigation (Dujiangyan): a river-control system begun in the third century BC and still in service, splitting the river into an inner stream for the fields and an outer one for the flood. It splits the river in two without a dam, sends one part onto the plain and one part downstream, and the farmland it waters is the reason Chengdu could become the city it is. You walk the divide and the spillway and look down on the water doing now what it was designed to do then; your guide shows you where each part does its job. About two and a half hours, with steps and bridges. Whether the site shuttle is operating in your month, and whether it sits inside your price, is stated in writing in your quote; any in-park transport is not included. Most visitors photograph the river and leave; understanding what it is doing is why this gets a full day rather than a stop. - Subtitle: a river-control system begun in the third century BC and still in service, splitting the river into an inner stream for the fields and an outer one for the flood. Admission included; reached by high-speed rail from Chengdu and back the same day. - Tags: Heritage - Host: Guangzhou, Guangzhou Lens — Trade history and southern city life - Access: a river-control system begun in the third century BC and still in service, splitting the river into an inner stream for the fields and an outer one for the flood. You walk the levee between the two flows and your guide shows you where each part does its job. About two and a half hours, with steps and bridges. Whether the site shuttle is operating in your month, and whether it sits inside your price, is stated in writing in your quote. It is worth the day out because almost nothing else on a first trip to China is both this old and still on duty. - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/b973a332521c.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/9d9a43ba2c4d.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/b9a766ee65f9.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/93a75b616069.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/3d2f86879c96.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/630985f2347a.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/9ebdb09b564e.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/73712e678adf.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/d204564d5198.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/0ee050a0ef26.jpg - Mount Qingcheng (Dujiangyan): one of the important Taoist mountains in China, and still working as one. Green, layered, quiet, walked on stone paths under old trees. Included with admission. - Subtitle: one of the important Taoist mountains in China, and still working as one. - Tags: Wellness - Host: Guangzhou, Guangzhou Lens — Trade history and southern city life - Access: one of the important Taoist mountains in China, and still working as one. Green, layered, quiet, walked on stone paths under old trees. Included with admission. - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/4219cb235eba.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/510f00cab43f.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/8d05c2ec54d1.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/40a943ac14b8.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/c0d4c6ca3bf5.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/ce595a251ee1.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/0f1828bab889.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/6c462ceaa624.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/0160d2eb08a5.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/cd60585e411c.jpg - Kuanzhai Alley and Taikoo Li (Chengdu): a historic neighborhood built around three parallel lanes, and the newer quarter beside it, walked on foot with your guide and with no ticketed venue involved. Both are commercial and busy, and we say that plainly rather than sell it as the last of the old city. Next to it, Taikoo Li shows you what the same city spends its money on today. About two and a half hours on foot with your guide; the guide's time is in your price and anything you buy is on your account. - Subtitle: a historic neighborhood built around three parallel lanes, and the newer quarter beside it, walked on foot with your guide and with no ticketed venue involved. - Tags: City - Host: Chengdu, Chengdu Lens — Pandas and Sichuan culture - Access: a historic neighborhood built around three parallel lanes, restored and now as much a shopping street as a quarter of old Chengdu; we say that plainly rather than sell it as the last of the old city. Next to it, Taikoo Li shows you what the same city spends its money on today. About two and a half hours on foot with your guide. - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/32a4dc46e28f.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/61859314af60.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/cc98f04d1142.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/aa2e718f79ba.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/53c7fdc344a2.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/07f3ceea8440.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/813e0ad5e32f.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/3f12a2960f0c.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/c3d25d0d0bc4.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/7d46557f3072.jpg - Community Sichuan opera (Chengdu): a neighborhood theater rather than a hotel ballroom show. You go backstage before it starts, watch the performers put their faces on, and then see face-changing from close range: the painted mask becomes another one in the time it takes the performer to swing his head. The ticket, the backstage visit and the face-changing piece are in the base price as listed by the theater; if the theater's program for your date turns out to run differently, your quote says so before you pay. Named performer, exact length and time slot are confirmed for your departure rather than promised here. About two hours, seated. - Subtitle: a neighborhood theater rather than a hotel ballroom show. - Tags: Stage - Host: Chengdu, Chengdu Lens — Pandas and Sichuan culture - Access: a neighborhood theater rather than a hotel ballroom show. You go backstage before it starts, watch the performers put their faces on, and then see face-changing from close range: the painted mask becomes another one in the time it takes the performer to swing his head. The ticket, the backstage visit and the face-changing piece are in the base price as listed by the theater; if the theater's program for your date turns out to run differently, your quote says so before you pay. About two hours, seated. - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/984b6ea21914.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/41a954b10a49.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/64ef87441097.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/9504e34cb716.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/7fb9607dad55.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/c7adcea03a38.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/c084683a4ac6.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/00bbe0d6022a.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/7727dea96809.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/551fdba21a23.jpg - Liziba monorail (Chongqing): a working metro line that runs straight through the middle of a residential tower, with the station inside the building. You ride it as passengers, metro fare included. It exists because Chongqing is built on hills that left no flat ground for a rail alignment, so the line went through the block instead of around it. - Subtitle: a working metro line that runs straight through the middle of a residential tower, with the station inside the building. - Tags: City - Host: Chongqing, Chongqing Lens — Layered city and monorails - Access: a working metro line that runs straight through the middle of a residential tower, with the station inside the building. You ride it as passengers, metro fare included. It exists because Chongqing is built on hills that left no flat ground for a rail alignment, so the line went through the block instead of around it. - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/3b31c4404e83.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/4dbc20c5a69d.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/bd5db54b03b2.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/36a228fbb92e.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/f9e47b5dd359.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/03c3f69320db.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/36eee1d9a632.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/1a89538f6c74.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/fa549846c4d6.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/13ad1ff6bb19.jpg - Vertical city walking line (Chongqing): a guided walk through a city where the ground floor of one street is the eighth floor of the next, following stairs, footbridges and cliff-edge lanes. The walk itself and your guide are in the base price. The stops on it are not fixed in advance and are not promised here: your guide sets them on the day around the weather and the crowds. - Subtitle: a guided walk through a city where the ground floor of one street is the eighth floor of the next, following stairs, footbridges and cliff-edge lanes. - Tags: City - Host: Chongqing, Chongqing Lens — Layered city and monorails - Access: a guided walk through a city where the ground floor of one street is the eighth floor of the next, following stairs, footbridges and cliff-edge lanes. The walk itself and your guide are in the base price. The stops on it are not fixed in advance and are not promised here: your guide sets them on the day around the weather and the crowds. - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/f87f475ff7b8.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/6e9529a78aaa.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/77bc64072851.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/de756d39ca05.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/e54f21f6b9ef.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/1a89538f6c74.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/e1dd36e5aeed.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/f00955f36bde.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/0c09a6881995.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/8d6f7af976a3.jpg - Bailong glass elevator and Yuanjiajie (Zhangjiajie): the elevator runs up the outside of a cliff inside Zhangjiajie National Forest Park and puts you on the plateau at the top; both directions are in your price. Up there, Yuanjiajie is the platform layer above the pillar forest, including the natural stone arch known as the First Bridge Under Heaven. These are the pillars the floating mountains in the Avatar films were modeled on, which is the fastest way to explain a place most guests have seen before they knew its name. Queues at the elevator run long in peak season, so this is a morning start. - Subtitle: the elevator runs up the outside of a cliff inside Zhangjiajie National Forest Park and puts you on the plateau at the top; both directions are in your price. - Tags: Nature - Host: Zhangjiajie, Zhangjiajie Lens — Avatar peaks and skywalks - Access: the elevator runs up the outside of a cliff inside Zhangjiajie National Forest Park and puts you on the plateau at the top; both directions are in your price. Up there, Yuanjiajie is the platform layer above the pillar forest, including the natural stone arch known as the First Bridge Under Heaven. These are the pillars the floating mountains in the Avatar films were modeled on, which is the fastest way to explain a place most guests have seen before they knew its name. Queues at the elevator run long in peak season, so this is a morning start. - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/aba27529841b.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/784f65e53b65.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/4bd0a84a6930.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/aaa7d820f194.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/c05df7d4fbbc.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/b0f3f29707e4.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/97e6678c30fe.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/4c6d487d27b7.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/65c92f55008a.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/ff5a68fc199a.jpg - Tianzi Mountain (Zhangjiajie): Tianzi Mountain is known for high viewpoints over Zhangjiajie's pillar-like sandstone formations. - Subtitle: A dramatic peak area in Zhangjiajie - Tags: Mountain - Host: Zhangjiajie, Zhangjiajie Lens — Avatar peaks and skywalks - Access: A key viewpoint for Zhangjiajie's vertical mountain scenery. - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/d4100c0f45a2.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/46c487fda8da.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/2ad097de6cfa.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/1a23f12fa796.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/6eb56556499f.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/61d14357c9c5.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/13ef886fd0e8.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/9d9fe7476e45.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/bde2e9f999d9.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/6d3aab1eb3ef.jpg - Golden Whip Stream (Zhangjiajie): a walk on the valley floor beside clear water, dense forest around you and sandstone cliffs straight overhead: the same pillars you saw from above, met at their feet. The path is level going and the length is cut to fit your day; the park from below is a quieter, closer park. - Subtitle: a walk on the valley floor beside clear water, dense forest around - Tags: Walk - Host: Zhangjiajie, Zhangjiajie Lens — Avatar peaks and skywalks - Access: The path is level going and the length is cut to fit your day; the park from below is a quieter, closer park. - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/6bd5ad7cd8d1.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/266dcd768842.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/65830461d08a.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/6e4f580d4495.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/7bb01923c0f0.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/b88d23386b67.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/3a2d514f0391.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/bd97ceeaaba6.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/f35dc1ae3065.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/90d2f7592034.jpg - Tianmen Mountain cableway and cliff walkway (Zhangjiajie): a passenger cableway 7.4 km long, one of the longest of its kind, running from the edge of the city up to the mountain top; the return ride is in your price. At the top, walkways are cut into the cliff face with glass-floored sections built out over the drop, and a solid-floor path runs beside every glass section for anyone who would rather not. This is a full-day item and nothing else is scheduled around it. - Subtitle: a passenger cableway 7.4 km long, one of the longest of its kind, running from the edge of the city up to the mountain top; the return ride is in your price. - Tags: Nature - Host: Zhangjiajie, Zhangjiajie Lens — Avatar peaks and skywalks - Access: a passenger cableway 7.4 km long, one of the longest of its kind, running from the edge of the city up to the mountain top; the return ride is in your price. At the top, walkways are cut into the cliff face with glass-floored sections built out over the drop, and a solid-floor path runs beside every glass section for anyone who would rather not. This is a full-day item and nothing else is scheduled around it. - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/c994af5f2dac.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/1fa378ef4857.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/81fbe4d9fad2.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/89ea209e2d83.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/794665e1063d.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/1963d3f6b020.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/f69bd3688f6a.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/89364237c06f.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/c7f5c6257a4d.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/dd19a44cd371.jpg - Heaven's Gate (Zhangjiajie): the opening through the rock on Tianmen Mountain, left by a cliff collapse recorded in AD 263, with a stair climb up to it from the mountain road. Visited on the Tianmen Mountain day and included with that entry. The stairway is the one genuinely steep piece of walking on this route, and it is optional to climb: the arch reads just as well from the base. - Subtitle: the opening through the rock on Tianmen Mountain, left by a cliff collapse recorded in AD 263, with a stair climb up to it from the mountain road. - Tags: Heritage - Host: Zhangjiajie, Zhangjiajie Lens — Avatar peaks and skywalks - Access: the opening through the rock on Tianmen Mountain, left by a cliff collapse recorded in AD 263, with a stair climb up to it from the mountain road. Visited on the Tianmen Mountain day and included with that entry. The stairway is the one genuinely steep piece of walking on this route, and it is optional to climb: the arch reads just as well from the base. - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/7b9c434eb237.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/df660c407774.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/89ea209e2d83.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/430a792616a2.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/14ef01cf6903.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/5c28e4ca9d19.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/14ee707c48c7.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/89364237c06f.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/33a9bfbf3a70.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/005cea6e25d7.jpg - Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon glass bridge (Zhangjiajie): a glass-decked bridge spanning 430 meters across the canyon; when it opened in 2016 it was the longest and highest span of its kind. Entry is in your price. A solid-floor path runs alongside it, so anyone in the party who would rather not cross the glass still gets across and still gets the view down the gorge. - Subtitle: a glass-decked bridge spanning 430 meters across the canyon; when it opened in 2016 it was the longest and highest span of its kind. - Tags: Active - Host: Zhangjiajie, Zhangjiajie Lens — Avatar peaks and skywalks - Access: a glass-decked bridge spanning 430 meters across the canyon; when it opened in 2016 it was the longest and highest span of its kind. Entry is in your price. A solid-floor path runs alongside it, so anyone in the party who would rather not cross the glass still gets across and still gets the view down the gorge. - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/fddaf5f5a165.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/f6dc4bb869f2.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/aeff191e11da.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/7ee06a1c0663.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/aaa7d820f194.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/c05df7d4fbbc.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/97e6678c30fe.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/d744309287ab.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/38716b06bfc8.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/c15d4e4de3c7.jpg - Tianmen Mountain evening lighting program (Zhangjiajie): an evening lighting program on the mountain. It runs on some dates and not others, so we attend it when it is operating on your confirmed date, and it carries no separate charge when we do. It is not promised and it is not a reason to pick this route; the Tianmen day stands on the cableway and the cliff walkway. - Subtitle: an evening lighting program on the mountain. - Tags: Stage - Host: Zhangjiajie, Zhangjiajie Lens — Avatar peaks and skywalks - Access: an evening lighting program on the mountain. It runs on some dates and not others, so we attend it when it is operating on your confirmed date, and it carries no separate charge when we do. It is not promised and it is not a reason to pick this route; the Tianmen day stands on the cableway and the cliff walkway. - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/c994af5f2dac.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/7b9c434eb237.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/89ea209e2d83.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/794665e1063d.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/1963d3f6b020.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/5c28e4ca9d19.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/d038b6057082.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/afe6601b8f45.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/dd19a44cd371.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/4a38f73427dd.jpg - Tujia brocade workshop (Zhangjiajie): xilankapu, literally "the flowered bedcover," is the Tujia weaving tradition of this region, worked on a waist loom with the pattern counted rather than drawn. You get hands on the loom when the workshop is open on your date, and a visit without the hands-on when it is not. Included either way, and not promised as a hands-on session. - Subtitle: xilankapu, literally "the flowered bedcover," is the Tujia weaving tradition of this region, worked on a waist loom with the pattern counted rather than drawn. - Tags: Hands-on - Host: Zhangjiajie, Zhangjiajie Lens — Avatar peaks and skywalks - Access: xilankapu, literally "the flowered bedcover," is the Tujia weaving tradition of this region, worked on a waist loom with the pattern counted rather than drawn. You get hands on the loom when the workshop is open on your date, and a visit without the hands-on when it is not. Included either way, and not promised as a hands-on session. - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/de558924fc70.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/8298b74be623.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/6baa5e8ea251.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/6615cf9639be.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/cc71127a408e.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/d9605d1e284a.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/328c68108177.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/151225c8da88.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/72871748e156.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/73488f51d149.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/f5c10cf4cb96.jpg - The Bund by Night: Two Banks, a Century Apart (Shanghai): the row of trading-house and bank buildings on one bank of the Huangpu, the Pudong towers on the other, and a hundred years between them, facing each other across the water. About an hour and a half. Your guide is with you for the whole evening, which also settles the practical question: the tea-house and language-practice approaches that work this waterfront are a known scam, and with a guide you never have to decide alone whether a stranger's invitation is genuine. In the base price. - Subtitle: the row of trading-house and bank buildings on one bank of the Huangpu, the Pudong towers on the other, and a hundred years between them. Your guide is with you for the whole evening; it is in the base price. - Tags: City - Host: Shanghai, Shanghai Lens — Skyline and riverfront culture - Access: the row of trading-house and bank buildings on one bank of the Huangpu, the Pudong towers on the other, and a hundred years between them. Your guide is with you for the whole evening, which is also how we deal with the tea-house and language-practice approaches that work this waterfront: nobody has to decide alone whether a stranger's invitation is genuine. - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/44b4c59711e7.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/819f854bed70.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/25f3fbf391b7.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/ab3be6b19c59.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/520402ec044f.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/eed1a59d8207.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/8851a6617c7b.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/2e92d8293a47.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/b3c382b7f98f.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/d9f1a5421f27.jpg - Yu Garden: Older than the Skyline (Shanghai): A classical garden of pavilions, rockery, ponds and paths that never run straight, sitting inside the oldest quarter of Shanghai. It is the one place in the city that predates everything the skyline is famous for. A short, level visit — two hours, all of it flat — and it is the last thing on the trip, sized to fit before an afternoon flight. Admission is in your base price. - Subtitle: A classical garden of pavilions, rockery, ponds and paths that never run straight in the oldest quarter of Shanghai, and the one place that predates everything its skyline is famous for. - Tags: Heritage - Host: Shanghai, Shanghai Lens — Skyline and riverfront culture - Access: a classical garden of pavilions, rockery, ponds and paths that never run straight, sitting inside the oldest quarter of Shanghai. Two hours, all of it flat. It is the one place in the city that predates everything the skyline is famous for. - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/7c5e906b378e.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/07b39b023295.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/075884fd7738.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/3623b2d6ff22.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/c3f4af921585.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/7bc088a35094.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/b4ff42f10f39.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/8ab6fa3c88e9.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/793d4d9ec24d.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/a1dac8269a5f.jpg - Shanghai Museum (Shanghai): bronzes, ceramics, painting and calligraphy, arranged so you can walk one material through three thousand years. About two hours. Entry is by timed reservation with limited English in the booking system, so your quote states in writing who books it and by when, and which branch your visit uses. Admission is in the base price. - Subtitle: bronzes, ceramics, painting and calligraphy, arranged so you can walk one material through three thousand years. - Tags: Museum - Host: Shanghai, Shanghai Lens — Skyline and riverfront culture - Access: bronzes, ceramics, painting and calligraphy, arranged so you can walk one material through three thousand years. About two hours. Entry is by timed reservation with limited English in the booking system, so your quote states in writing who books it and by when, and which branch your visit uses. Admission is in the base price. - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/553f9e5daffa.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/463009b942cf.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/09ed444fa597.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/f449d01924e3.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/1c391e422dd6.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/3062838f53d8.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/5fe4f8f934ce.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/1ff4b8a733b8.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/1c6a0e2a66d2.jpg - Wukang Road: A Loose Walk (Shanghai): plane-tree streets, walled houses from the concession decades, and the independent shops that have taken over their ground floors. You walk it at street speed, and it is the loosest hour of the route — the low, relaxed counterweight to the skyline you looked at the night before: no ticket, no queue, no gate. About two hours on flat pavement. In the base price. - Subtitle: plane-tree streets, walled houses from the concession decades, and the independent shops in their ground floors — the loose, low-rise counterweight to the skyline. About two hours, no ticket, no queue, no gate. - Tags: City - Host: Shanghai, Shanghai Lens — Skyline and riverfront culture - Access: plane-tree streets, walled houses from the concession decades, and the independent shops that have taken over their ground floors. You walk it at street speed, and it is the loosest hour of the route: no ticket, no queue, no gate. About two hours. - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/a469e3c35b36.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/ff2e7b6f2ffc.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/769ee0838cac.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/664544b5b738.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/be6f02f8c66f.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/b1c8a477961a.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/738425c31d43.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/b5ee2850407d.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/dc30a72b34d4.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/7e7256ca585e.jpg - Huangpu Commuter Ferry (Shanghai): the commuter crossing, not a sightseeing cruise: a few minutes at the rail with people going to work and their scooters, the same water the Bund was built to face. Cheap and short, the last thing the route does before the airport, and the far bank arrives quickly. In the base price. - Subtitle: the commuter crossing, not a sightseeing cruise: a few minutes at the rail with commuters and their scooters, the same water the Bund was built to face. In the base price. - Tags: City - Host: Shanghai, Shanghai Lens — Skyline and riverfront culture - Access: the commuter crossing, not a sightseeing cruise: a few minutes at the rail with people going to work and their scooters, the same water the Bund was built to face. Cheap, short, and the last thing the route does before the airport. - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/77334b45911c.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/3035dd70ef19.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/c5ed3afb6c7c.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/31ab98f95965.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/c1a4fff775c6.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/29527e0c5132.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/dde04b2f55e4.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/b511339a7702.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/ab1024d4f1e7.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/35255aa13b0d.jpg ### Capture banner - Label: Save this itinerary - Title: Send the full route to your inbox - Subtitle: We will include the latest hotels, hosts and pacing notes. - Placeholder: Email address - CTA: Send route - Sent label: Sent ## Itinerary ### River First, Then Stone - 21 days Journey #### Beijing (3 days) - Subtitle: Land, and let the country wait - Recommendation: Your driver meets your flight, whatever time it lands. Twenty-one days is long enough that the first one can be spent doing nothing. - Transport: High-speed rail - Transport mode: train Airport pickup · Beijing through the window · Evening - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/aT8MIFX0.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/14h8ZnOb.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/17bdSgjF.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/1bDq9gT4.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/1cZHxWkg.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/1vwu9mIQ.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/1X29GyUB.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/1xVI7jTc.webp ##### Day 1: Land, and let the country wait - (transport) — your driver and vehicle wait for the flight number on your confirmation, and the run into the city is yours to sleep through. - (sight) — ring roads first, then poplars and the lit shopfronts of an ordinary street. The country you flew this far to see turns up before you have opened a bag. - (note) — nothing is scheduled. Your guide is reachable, and dinner near the hotel is recommended and booked for you if you want it, on your account. - (accommodation) Novotel Beijing Peace — Hotel stay in Beijing. ##### Day 2: One axis, then the view of it - (sight) — your timed slot is booked ahead by us, so you walk in on schedule. Inside you take one axis: the ceremonial halls where the court did its business, the living quarters behind them, then the imperial garden and out through the north gate. Stand in the middle of the main courtyard and look back through the gates you came in by: they line up, one wall inside another, all the way out to the street. - (sight) — the palace is large and guests regularly find it tiring, so the route stops at the seats we know about and the garden at the end is unhurried. - (sight) — straight out of the north gate and up the hill that was built from the earth dug out of the moat. Twenty minutes of steps, and from the pavilion at the top the palace lies flat below you: gold roof after gold roof in a grid, with the city's central axis running out north and south. This is the fifteen seconds worth filming today. ##### Day 3: The wall, and only the wall - (transport) — the run north out of the city takes a good part of the morning, and the vehicle stays with you all day. - (sight) — the climbing is done for you, by the uphill cable car or the open chairlift. You step off onto a restored stretch of wall with watchtowers running away along the ridge in both directions. - (sight) — your guide reads the wall while you walk it: the beacon towers and how a message moved along them, the pass in the valley below, and why the line runs along this ridge and not the next one. Look along the ridge with the towers stepping down it, one after another, until they stop being visible. - (sight) — the descent method for this route is being finalized with the operator, so your quote states in writing how you come down; the toboggan is sold separately if you want it and is never added by default. #### Xi'an (3 days) - Subtitle: Square, altar, museum, train - Recommendation: The fullest day in Beijing, then the high-speed rail south. It ends the wall chapter and opens the next one. - Transport: High-speed rail - Transport mode: train Tian'anmen Square · Temple of Heaven · National Museum of China · High-speed rail to Xi'an - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/BMMnK9X6.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/2IrwPATt.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/2SYFFac8.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/2z6MDkku.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/34qxDxFA.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/3DF4Fowd.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/3G0oTlIq.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/56RpQD9k.webp ##### Day 4: Square, altar, museum, train - (sight) — you cross the ceremonial center of modern China on foot. Security screening comes first; your registration is done in advance with your passport details, and the queue still takes its own half hour to an hour, budgeted separately from the time you spend on the square. - (sight) — three sets of buildings in one architectural sentence, round for heaven and square for earth: the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, the Imperial Vault of Heaven, the round altar. Walk out to the middle of the round altar and speak at a normal volume: the stone tiers were laid to send it back to you. - (sight) — one thread through the bronzes and ceramics rather than the whole building, taken as a second look at things you have now stood in front of. Reservation booked by us. - (transport) — hotel to station by your own vehicle, then the train. The class of travel for your order is stated in writing in your quote. The North China Plain runs flat past the window for the first hour and then stops being flat. - (accommodation) Somerset Xindicheng Xi'an — Hotel stay in Xian. ##### Day 5: Eight thousand men, one grave - (sight) — an estimated eight thousand figures, buried to follow one man into whatever came next, standing in the trenches you look down into from the walkways. Your guide separates them for you: generals by armor and headdress, crossbowmen by stance, infantry by everything they lack. - (sight) — in the newer excavation areas some figures still carry paint. Ask your guide to point to one and then look back down the trench: every one of those grey ranks was once colored. - (sight) — this site is busy in season, which is why it holds the morning by itself and why your entry is timed rather than left to the queue. ##### Day 6: A wall that closes - (sight) — you ride the top of one of the most complete city walls surviving in China, bicycle hire included; walking a section instead costs the same. From up here the old city is a closed rectangle with a gate tower on each side, and the modern city presses against it from outside all the way around. Somewhere on the second side you'll notice you have stopped talking and started counting the gate towers. - (sight) — the two towers that kept the city's time before clocks, standing at the crossing of the old street grid. Climbing either one is a separate on-site ticket and is not in your price. - (sight) — the lanes of the Hui neighborhood at the hour they are actually working, with your guide reading the stalls for you: what is worth stopping for, what is made for tourists, and how each thing is eaten. Food is on your own account. #### Chengdu (4 days) - Subtitle: Over the Qinling - Recommendation: A pagoda in the morning, then a mountain range at 250 km/h. China changes climate on the far side of it. - Transport: High-speed rail - Transport mode: train Giant Wild Goose Pagoda grounds · High-speed rail through the Qinling range · Arrival in Chengdu - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/6PbMgR6W.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/18sksaPz.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/1BPFDek8.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/2iDGv07g.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/2sL1auf0.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/37Mf4mO1.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/4BqwVBVY.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/4mDgLfna.webp ##### Day 7: Over the Qinling - (sight) — the temple grounds around the brick pagoda raised to hold sutras a Tang-dynasty monk carried back overland from India. Grounds entry is included; climbing the pagoda itself is a separate on-site ticket and is not in your price. - (transport) — the afternoon train south runs through the mountain wall that divides China's north from its south, mostly in tunnel with sudden valleys between. The class of travel for your order is stated in writing in your quote. Sit on the right and watch what happens to the vegetation when you come out the far side. - (sight) — your Chengdu guide takes over at the station, and the evening is left open: you are here for four nights and nothing needs to happen tonight. - (accommodation) Atour Hotel Chengdu Taikoo Li Chunxi Road Pedestrian Street — Hotel stay in Chengdu. ##### Day 8: Morning animal, afternoon chair - (sight) — you are there in the morning, the hours when the pandas are generally moving: eating, coming down off things, going back to sleep in the fork of a tree. Flat shaded paths and about three hours to use as you like. Get to an enclosure fence early and wait: the animal comes over on its own schedule, not yours. - (sight) — bamboo chairs under the trees and one gaiwan each, the lidded cup China brews in, topped up by someone with a long-spouted kettle for as long as you sit. Cards at the next table, an ear cleaner working two tables over with a tuning fork. The whole afternoon is set aside for this and there is nothing after it. An hour in, you'll notice nobody at your table has asked what happens next. ##### Day 9: The day the route turns to water - (sight) — a waterworks finished in the 3rd century BC and running ever since, which splits one river into a flood channel and an irrigation channel using no dam at all. You walk out onto the divide with the fast water on both sides and see the three parts of it working at once. The Chengdu plain has been farming behind this thing for over two thousand years, which is why it gets a whole day instead of a photo stop. - (sight) — one of the founding mountains of Taoism, rising straight above the waterworks and much quieter than the plain below. You sit down with a priest who lives in the temple and ask what you want to ask, then take a taiji session on the mountain. Both are in your price. The walking is stone steps under old trees. - (sight) — the same intercity line back in the evening, into the same hotel room you left this morning. ##### Day 10: Old grid, new block, painted face - (sight) — two blocks of Qing-dynasty street grid and one block of current Chengdu retail, walked back to back. The lanes are heavily commercialized and your guide will say so: what they are worth walking for is the shape, how wide a wide lane was and how narrow a narrow one, with the retail block afterwards showing what the same city does with money now. - (sight) — a neighborhood house rather than a hotel ballroom. You go backstage before it starts, then watch face-changing from close enough that you still fail to catch it: the painted mask becomes another mask in the time the performer takes to swing his head. Sit in the second row. #### Chongqing (3 days) - Subtitle: A city with no flat ground - Recommendation: Ninety minutes east by rail into a city stacked on hills. Street level here is a relative term. - Transport: Yangtze cruise - Transport mode: car High-speed rail to Chongqing · Liziba monorail · Vertical city walking line - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/e1N5p9oQ.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/2WC4wIOy.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/a67IT6vm.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/fKY8lEzB.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/gQ9kPxoo.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/gZi7VFdE.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/kBEAjAAC.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/khXLMct9.webp ##### Day 11: A city with no flat ground - (transport) — your vehicle to the station in Chengdu, the train, then your Chongqing guide at the other end. The class of travel for your order is stated in writing in your quote. - (sight) — you ride a working metro line straight through the middle of a residential tower, with the station inside the building and people getting off to go home. Metro fare included. Stand at the front window on the approach: the tower arrives, and then you are inside it. - (sight) — your guide walks you through a place where the ground floor of one street is the eighth floor of the next, by stairs, footbridges and lanes cut along the cliff. The stops are set on the day rather than written down in advance, because weather and crowds decide which of them are worth the climb. - (accommodation) Chongqing Marriott Hotel — Hotel stay in Chongqing. ##### Day 12: Onto the water - (sight) — your vehicle and guide stay with you until the pier, and the morning is kept light because the boarding time is fixed and the traffic here is vertical. - (transport) — hotel to pier by your own vehicle, included. This is where our own arrangements stop and the ship operator's program begins. - (sight) — boarding at 6 p.m., sailing after dark. The four days on board are not purchased by us yet and are not sold to you on this page: no cabin is held and the ship's English-language service level is not confirmed in writing. What follows for days thirteen to fifteen is the operator's own published program, given so you can see the shape of the segment. ##### Day 13: Downstream, first stop - (sight) — the operator's program puts a shore visit here from 8:30 a.m. to noon, with the hill cable car and the buggy listed inside the ship's own ticket. The hill carries temples built around the Chinese underworld: the place the dead were said to report to, which is why the local name for the town translates as ghost city. - (note) — the operator lists an outdoor stage show at Zhongxian from 6 to 8 p.m. as complimentary and places it by the sailing schedule of the day. It is not promised here and nothing on this route depends on it. - (sight) — nothing is arranged by us on the ship, because we have not bought anything on it yet. Everything aboard, including meals and any service level, sits with the operator until our procurement lands. #### Yichang (1 days) - Subtitle: The narrow part - Recommendation: Two gorges pass the window between a morning ashore and an afternoon up a side stream. This is the day the river is doing the work you came to see. - Transport: High-speed rail - Transport mode: train Peak of the Three Gorges or Baidicheng · Qutang Gorge and Wu Gorge · Shennv Stream - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/iHkhCTng.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/8iKJCzTV.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/bgMj7PBV.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/1acbf9a887d4.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/1f44ed3eccc3.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/5ea6749e1cb8.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/5ec17456f749.jpg, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/61311457e682.jpg ##### Day 14: The narrow part - (sight) — the operator's program lists a shore visit from 8 a.m. to 11:30, choosing between the viewpoint above Qutang Gorge and the walled hill town at its mouth. Which one runs on a given sailing is the operator's call, not ours. - (sight) — the program has the ship through Qutang around 11:30 and through Wu Gorge in the early afternoon. Qutang is the short one and the tight one: the walls close in and the boat is suddenly the widest thing in the frame. Stand at the rail rather than behind glass, and look up rather than ahead. - (sight) — a side stream visit in the afternoon on the operator's program, on smaller boats up a tributary where the walls come closer than the main channel allows. #### Zhangjiajie (4 days) - Subtitle: Off the water, onto the train - Recommendation: The dam in the morning, then two hours of rail into the mountains that the water finished with long ago. - Transport: Flight - Transport mode: airplane Three Gorges Dam · Our vehicle takes over · Into Zhangjiajie - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/Ff62c4Dt.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/14B6b2VP.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/1uw3ShDO.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/2t45crmz.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/3g0JUsbQ.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/3KNKbO1s.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/4FYtDGPN.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/75b1yrkY.webp ##### Day 15: Off the water, onto the train - (sight) — the operator's program runs the dam visit from 8 a.m. to 12:30 and includes the cable car at Maoping port in the ship's ticket, then puts guests on its own free bus to the Yichang visitor center around midday. Two thousand years after Dujiangyan split a river without a dam, this is the same country stopping the same river with one. - (sight) — from the visitor center you are back with our arrangements: transfer to Yichang station, then the high-speed train to Zhangjiajie. Because the dam visit occupies the morning, this is an afternoon train by design, and the connection between the ship's arrival and the day's departures is checked against the published timetable order by order before your date is confirmed. - (sight) — pier-side transfer, station transfer and the hotel here are ours and are included. You unpack once and stay four nights. - (accommodation) Pullman Zhangjiajie — Hotel stay in Zhangjiajie. ##### Day 16: What the water made - (sight) — the lift runs up the outside of a cliff face inside Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, both directions in your price. Queues here run long in peak season, so the day starts early rather than after breakfast at leisure. - (sight) — the platform layer on top of the plateau, looking out over the densest run of sandstone columns, including the natural stone arch called the First Bridge Under Heaven. These are the pillars the floating mountains in the Avatar films were modeled on, which is how most guests find out they have already seen this place. - (sight) — today is from above. The cliff walkway tomorrow is from beside, and the streambed the day after is from below. Nothing else is scheduled today, on purpose. ##### Day 17: Beside the stone - (sight) — a passenger cableway 7.4 km long, one of the longest of its kind, boarding at the edge of the city and climbing to the mountain top; the return ride is in your price. You leave from a street with traffic on it and arrive on a ridge, without a road in between. - (sight) — the walkways are cut into the rock face with glass-floored sections built out over the drop. A solid-floor path runs beside every glass section, so anyone who would rather not walk on glass walks the same route on stone. - (sight) — the opening straight through the rock, left by a cliff collapse recorded in AD 263. A stairway climbs to it from the mountain road; the stairway is the one genuinely steep piece of walking on this route and climbing it is your choice, since the arch reads just as well from the bottom. - (note) — the mountain runs an evening lighting program on some dates. When it is operating on your confirmed date we go, and it carries no extra charge; when it is not, the evening is yours and the day has already stood on the cableway and the walkway. ##### Day 18: From above, across, and underneath - (sight) — the high terrace over the densest part of the pillar forest, where the columns stand in ranks below you rather than around you. The mountain is named after a Tujia leader who styled himself Son of Heaven, which tells you who held this country before the maps did. - (sight) — down to the valley floor and along the streambed, the same columns seen from underneath with the canopy closing overhead. Walking length is set on the day to suit your party. Wild macaques work this stretch and will take food out of an open hand, so food stays packed and your guide walks the party through. Down here you'll find yourself lowering your voice without deciding to. - (sight) — a glass-decked bridge spanning 430 meters across the canyon; when it opened in 2016 it was the longest and highest span of its kind. A solid-floor path runs alongside for anyone who would rather cross on something opaque. - (sight) — xilankapu, literally "the flowered bedcover," is the local Tujia weaving tradition, worked on a waist loom with the pattern counted in threads rather than drawn on paper. You get hands on the loom when the workshop is open on your date, and a visit without the hands-on when it is not. #### Shanghai (3 days) - Subtitle: Out of the mountains, onto the estuary - Recommendation: A flight east, then the last chapter of the route, which is only two days long. - Transport: Flight - Transport mode: airplane Flight to Shanghai · The Bund after dark · What changed - Images: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/cI7Vs1XV.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/13x1KtnS.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/1Q9afrZn.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/1Riqjj0n.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/1VrlDwIi.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/1vYpI6NZ.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/3PEjxTGx.webp, https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/4EbDdFHb.webp ##### Day 19: Out of the mountains, onto the estuary - (transport) — hotel to airport, the flight, airport to hotel, both ends in your own vehicle. The cabin class for your order is stated in writing in your quote. - (sight) — the row of early-twentieth-century bank and trading houses holds one bank of the Huangpu and the Pudong towers hold the other, a hundred years apart, looking straight at each other across the water. Your guide is with you for the whole evening, which also means the practice-English and tea-ceremony approaches that work this waterfront on first nights do not reach you. - (sight) — three weeks ago you were looking at a wall built to keep things out. Tonight you are standing on the edge that let everything in. - (accommodation) Bellagio by MGM Shanghai on the Bund — Hotel stay in Shanghai. ##### Day 20: A garden that only goes in circles - (sight) — pavilions, rockery, ponds and paths that refuse to run straight, dropped inside the oldest quarter of the city. Flat the whole way, about two hours. After three weeks of imperial scale and geological scale, this is deliberately the smallest thing on the route. - (sight) — bronzes, ceramics, painting and applied arts, arranged by material rather than by dynasty, which is the arrangement that finally makes the last three weeks line up. Your reservation is booked by us because the system's English coverage is limited. Two galleries properly, not all of them quickly. - (sight) — nothing is scheduled after the museum. This is the third of the three easy days and the last one before you fly. ##### Day 21: Plane trees, then the water one more time - (sight) — plane-tree streets, historic houses and small independent shops, at a scale that has nothing to do with last night's skyline. The walk shortens to fit your flight time. - (transport) — you cross on the boat people take to work, standing at the rail with commuters and their scooters rather than on a sightseeing deck; the fare is included. Twenty-one days that started at a wall finish on moving water. Halfway across you'll realize you have been reading the riverbank the whole trip. - (transport) — your driver takes you to the airport, timed to your flight with room to spare. If a late flight leaves the day open, tell us and we plan the gap around your check-out rather than around a schedule. ## Daily plan ### Day 1 — Land, and let the country wait Your driver meets your flight, whatever time it lands. Twenty-one days is long enough that the first one can be spent doing nothing. - Airport pickup: your driver and vehicle wait for the flight number on your confirmation, and the run into the city is yours to sleep through. - Beijing through the window: ring roads first, then poplars and the lit shopfronts of an ordinary street. The country you flew this far to see turns up before you have opened a bag. - Evening: nothing is scheduled. Your guide is reachable, and dinner near the hotel is recommended and booked for you if you want it, on your account. - Stay: Beijing - Meals: None included today ### Day 2 — One axis, then the view of it The palace on foot, then the hill behind it. You see the plan only after you have walked the thing. - The Forbidden City: your timed slot is booked ahead by us, so you walk in on schedule. Inside you take one axis: the ceremonial halls where the court did its business, the living quarters behind them, then the imperial garden and out through the north gate. Stand in the middle of the main courtyard and look back through the gates you came in by: they line up, one wall inside another, all the way out to the street. - Pace: the palace is large and guests regularly find it tiring, so the route stops at the seats we know about and the garden at the end is unhurried. - Jingshan Park: straight out of the north gate and up the hill that was built from the earth dug out of the moat. Twenty minutes of steps, and from the pavilion at the top the palace lies flat below you: gold roof after gold roof in a grid, with the city's central axis running out north and south. This is the fifteen seconds worth filming today. - Stay: Beijing - Meals: Breakfast at the hotel ### Day 3 — The wall, and only the wall Today has one thing in it, because the round trip north uses the day. This is the first of the walls. - Drive out to Mutianyu: the run north out of the city takes a good part of the morning, and the vehicle stays with you all day. - Cable car up: the climbing is done for you, by the uphill cable car or the open chairlift. You step off onto a restored stretch of wall with watchtowers running away along the ridge in both directions. - Walk the towers: your guide reads the wall while you walk it: the beacon towers and how a message moved along them, the pass in the valley below, and why the line runs along this ridge and not the next one. Look along the ridge with the towers stepping down it, one after another, until they stop being visible. - Descent: the descent method for this route is being finalized with the operator, so your quote states in writing how you come down; the toboggan is sold separately if you want it and is never added by default. - Stay: Beijing - Meals: Breakfast at the hotel ### Day 4 — Square, altar, museum, train The fullest day in Beijing, then the high-speed rail south. It ends the wall chapter and opens the next one. - Tian'anmen Square: you cross the ceremonial center of modern China on foot. Security screening comes first; your registration is done in advance with your passport details, and the queue still takes its own half hour to an hour, budgeted separately from the time you spend on the square. - Temple of Heaven: three sets of buildings in one architectural sentence, round for heaven and square for earth: the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, the Imperial Vault of Heaven, the round altar. Walk out to the middle of the round altar and speak at a normal volume: the stone tiers were laid to send it back to you. - National Museum of China: one thread through the bronzes and ceramics rather than the whole building, taken as a second look at things you have now stood in front of. Reservation booked by us. - High-speed rail to Xi'an: hotel to station by your own vehicle, then the train. The class of travel for your order is stated in writing in your quote. The North China Plain runs flat past the window for the first hour and then stops being flat. - Stay: Xi'an - Meals: Breakfast at the hotel ### Day 5 — Eight thousand men, one grave The pits get the whole morning and nothing is stacked behind them. Rank, armor and hairstyle are the day's reading lesson. - The Terracotta Warriors: an estimated eight thousand figures, buried to follow one man into whatever came next, standing in the trenches you look down into from the walkways. Your guide separates them for you: generals by armor and headdress, crossbowmen by stance, infantry by everything they lack. - Surviving paint: in the newer excavation areas some figures still carry paint. Ask your guide to point to one and then look back down the trench: every one of those grey ranks was once colored. - Crowds: this site is busy in season, which is why it holds the morning by itself and why your entry is timed rather than left to the queue. - Stay: Xi'an - Meals: Breakfast at the hotel ### Day 6 — A wall that closes The second wall of the route, and the first one you can go all the way around. The evening belongs to the lanes behind the towers. - Xi'an City Wall by bicycle: you ride the top of one of the most complete city walls surviving in China, bicycle hire included; walking a section instead costs the same. From up here the old city is a closed rectangle with a gate tower on each side, and the modern city presses against it from outside all the way around. Somewhere on the second side you'll notice you have stopped talking and started counting the gate towers. - Bell and Drum Tower square: the two towers that kept the city's time before clocks, standing at the crossing of the old street grid. Climbing either one is a separate on-site ticket and is not in your price. - The Muslim Quarter by night: the lanes of the Hui neighborhood at the hour they are actually working, with your guide reading the stalls for you: what is worth stopping for, what is made for tourists, and how each thing is eaten. Food is on your own account. - Stay: Xi'an - Meals: Breakfast at the hotel ### Day 7 — Over the Qinling A pagoda in the morning, then a mountain range at 250 km/h. China changes climate on the far side of it. - Giant Wild Goose Pagoda grounds: the temple grounds around the brick pagoda raised to hold sutras a Tang-dynasty monk carried back overland from India. Grounds entry is included; climbing the pagoda itself is a separate on-site ticket and is not in your price. - High-speed rail through the Qinling range: the afternoon train south runs through the mountain wall that divides China's north from its south, mostly in tunnel with sudden valleys between. The class of travel for your order is stated in writing in your quote. Sit on the right and watch what happens to the vegetation when you come out the far side. - Arrival in Chengdu: your Chengdu guide takes over at the station, and the evening is left open: you are here for four nights and nothing needs to happen tonight. - Stay: Chengdu - Meals: Breakfast at the hotel ### Day 8 — Morning animal, afternoon chair One of the three easy days. The morning has a start time and the afternoon has none. - Chengdu panda base: you are there in the morning, the hours when the pandas are generally moving: eating, coming down off things, going back to sleep in the fork of a tree. Flat shaded paths and about three hours to use as you like. Get to an enclosure fence early and wait: the animal comes over on its own schedule, not yours. - Tea sitting in People's Park: bamboo chairs under the trees and one gaiwan each, the lidded cup China brews in, topped up by someone with a long-spouted kettle for as long as you sit. Cards at the next table, an ear cleaner working two tables over with a tuning fork. The whole afternoon is set aside for this and there is nothing after it. An hour in, you'll notice nobody at your table has asked what happens next. - Stay: Chengdu - Meals: Breakfast at the hotel ### Day 9 — The day the route turns to water Out by intercity rail, back the same night, bags untouched. Everything after today is about what water does. - Dujiangyan irrigation works: a waterworks finished in the 3rd century BC and running ever since, which splits one river into a flood channel and an irrigation channel using no dam at all. You walk out onto the divide with the fast water on both sides and see the three parts of it working at once. The Chengdu plain has been farming behind this thing for over two thousand years, which is why it gets a whole day instead of a photo stop. - Mount Qingcheng: one of the founding mountains of Taoism, rising straight above the waterworks and much quieter than the plain below. You sit down with a priest who lives in the temple and ask what you want to ask, then take a taiji session on the mountain. Both are in your price. The walking is stone steps under old trees. - Back to Chengdu: the same intercity line back in the evening, into the same hotel room you left this morning. - Stay: Chengdu - Meals: Breakfast at the hotel ### Day 10 — Old grid, new block, painted face An easy afternoon and a neighborhood theater. Today is the city Chengdu is now, not the one on the postcards. - Kuanzhai Alley and Taikoo Li: two blocks of Qing-dynasty street grid and one block of current Chengdu retail, walked back to back. The lanes are heavily commercialized and your guide will say so: what they are worth walking for is the shape, how wide a wide lane was and how narrow a narrow one, with the retail block afterwards showing what the same city does with money now. - Community Sichuan opera: a neighborhood house rather than a hotel ballroom. You go backstage before it starts, then watch face-changing from close enough that you still fail to catch it: the painted mask becomes another mask in the time the performer takes to swing his head. Sit in the second row. - Stay: Chengdu - Meals: Breakfast at the hotel ### Day 11 — A city with no flat ground Ninety minutes east by rail into a city stacked on hills. Street level here is a relative term. - High-speed rail to Chongqing: your vehicle to the station in Chengdu, the train, then your Chongqing guide at the other end. The class of travel for your order is stated in writing in your quote. - Liziba monorail: you ride a working metro line straight through the middle of a residential tower, with the station inside the building and people getting off to go home. Metro fare included. Stand at the front window on the approach: the tower arrives, and then you are inside it. - Vertical city walking line: your guide walks you through a place where the ground floor of one street is the eighth floor of the next, by stairs, footbridges and lanes cut along the cliff. The stops are set on the day rather than written down in advance, because weather and crowds decide which of them are worth the climb. - Stay: Chongqing - Meals: Breakfast at the hotel ### Day 12 — Onto the water You board in the afternoon and the road stops being your problem. From here to Yichang the itinerary is the river's. - Morning in Chongqing: your vehicle and guide stay with you until the pier, and the morning is kept light because the boarding time is fixed and the traffic here is vertical. - Transfer to the pier: hotel to pier by your own vehicle, included. This is where our own arrangements stop and the ship operator's program begins. - What the operator's program says: boarding at 6 p.m., sailing after dark. The four days on board are not purchased by us yet and are not sold to you on this page: no cabin is held and the ship's English-language service level is not confirmed in writing. What follows for days thirteen to fifteen is the operator's own published program, given so you can see the shape of the segment. - Stay: Aboard - Meals: Breakfast at the hotel ### Day 13 — Downstream, first stop A morning ashore at a temple hill, then the river again. The operator's program runs this day; ours does not. - Fengdu Mingshan scenic area: the operator's program puts a shore visit here from 8:30 a.m. to noon, with the hill cable car and the buggy listed inside the ship's own ticket. The hill carries temples built around the Chinese underworld: the place the dead were said to report to, which is why the local name for the town translates as ghost city. - Zhongxian in the evening: the operator lists an outdoor stage show at Zhongxian from 6 to 8 p.m. as complimentary and places it by the sailing schedule of the day. It is not promised here and nothing on this route depends on it. - On board: nothing is arranged by us on the ship, because we have not bought anything on it yet. Everything aboard, including meals and any service level, sits with the operator until our procurement lands. - Stay: Aboard - Meals: Not applicable, see Special Notes ### Day 14 — The narrow part Two gorges pass the window between a morning ashore and an afternoon up a side stream. This is the day the river is doing the work you came to see. - Peak of the Three Gorges or Baidicheng: the operator's program lists a shore visit from 8 a.m. to 11:30, choosing between the viewpoint above Qutang Gorge and the walled hill town at its mouth. Which one runs on a given sailing is the operator's call, not ours. - Qutang Gorge and Wu Gorge: the program has the ship through Qutang around 11:30 and through Wu Gorge in the early afternoon. Qutang is the short one and the tight one: the walls close in and the boat is suddenly the widest thing in the frame. Stand at the rail rather than behind glass, and look up rather than ahead. - Shennv Stream: a side stream visit in the afternoon on the operator's program, on smaller boats up a tributary where the walls come closer than the main channel allows. - Stay: Aboard - Meals: Not applicable, see Special Notes ### Day 15 — Off the water, onto the train The dam in the morning, then two hours of rail into the mountains that the water finished with long ago. - Three Gorges Dam: the operator's program runs the dam visit from 8 a.m. to 12:30 and includes the cable car at Maoping port in the ship's ticket, then puts guests on its own free bus to the Yichang visitor center around midday. Two thousand years after Dujiangyan split a river without a dam, this is the same country stopping the same river with one. - Our vehicle takes over: from the visitor center you are back with our arrangements: transfer to Yichang station, then the high-speed train to Zhangjiajie. Because the dam visit occupies the morning, this is an afternoon train by design, and the connection between the ship's arrival and the day's departures is checked against the published timetable order by order before your date is confirmed. - Into Zhangjiajie: pier-side transfer, station transfer and the hotel here are ours and are included. You unpack once and stay four nights. - Stay: Zhangjiajie - Meals: Breakfast at the hotel ### Day 16 — What the water made An elevator up the outside of a cliff, and then the thing this whole route has been walking toward. - Bailong glass elevator: the lift runs up the outside of a cliff face inside Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, both directions in your price. Queues here run long in peak season, so the day starts early rather than after breakfast at leisure. - Yuanjiajie: the platform layer on top of the plateau, looking out over the densest run of sandstone columns, including the natural stone arch called the First Bridge Under Heaven. These are the pillars the floating mountains in the Avatar films were modeled on, which is how most guests find out they have already seen this place. - The three angles: today is from above. The cliff walkway tomorrow is from beside, and the streambed the day after is from below. Nothing else is scheduled today, on purpose. - Stay: Zhangjiajie - Meals: Breakfast at the hotel ### Day 17 — Beside the stone A long cableway out of town, then walkways cut into a cliff face. Today is the vertical one. - Tianmen Mountain cableway: a passenger cableway 7.4 km long, one of the longest of its kind, boarding at the edge of the city and climbing to the mountain top; the return ride is in your price. You leave from a street with traffic on it and arrive on a ridge, without a road in between. - Cliff walkway: the walkways are cut into the rock face with glass-floored sections built out over the drop. A solid-floor path runs beside every glass section, so anyone who would rather not walk on glass walks the same route on stone. - Heaven's Gate: the opening straight through the rock, left by a cliff collapse recorded in AD 263. A stairway climbs to it from the mountain road; the stairway is the one genuinely steep piece of walking on this route and climbing it is your choice, since the arch reads just as well from the bottom. - Evening lighting program: the mountain runs an evening lighting program on some dates. When it is operating on your confirmed date we go, and it carries no extra charge; when it is not, the evening is yours and the day has already stood on the cableway and the walkway. - Stay: Zhangjiajie - Meals: Breakfast at the hotel ### Day 18 — From above, across, and underneath The last full day of stone, and the one that changes elevation most. It ends at a loom. - Tianzi Mountain: the high terrace over the densest part of the pillar forest, where the columns stand in ranks below you rather than around you. The mountain is named after a Tujia leader who styled himself Son of Heaven, which tells you who held this country before the maps did. - Golden Whip Stream: down to the valley floor and along the streambed, the same columns seen from underneath with the canopy closing overhead. Walking length is set on the day to suit your party. Wild macaques work this stretch and will take food out of an open hand, so food stays packed and your guide walks the party through. Down here you'll find yourself lowering your voice without deciding to. - Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon glass bridge: a glass-decked bridge spanning 430 meters across the canyon; when it opened in 2016 it was the longest and highest span of its kind. A solid-floor path runs alongside for anyone who would rather cross on something opaque. - Tujia brocade workshop: xilankapu, literally "the flowered bedcover," is the local Tujia weaving tradition, worked on a waist loom with the pattern counted in threads rather than drawn on paper. You get hands on the loom when the workshop is open on your date, and a visit without the hands-on when it is not. - Stay: Zhangjiajie - Meals: Breakfast at the hotel ### Day 19 — Out of the mountains, onto the estuary A flight east, then the last chapter of the route, which is only two days long. - Flight to Shanghai: hotel to airport, the flight, airport to hotel, both ends in your own vehicle. The cabin class for your order is stated in writing in your quote. - The Bund after dark: the row of early-twentieth-century bank and trading houses holds one bank of the Huangpu and the Pudong towers hold the other, a hundred years apart, looking straight at each other across the water. Your guide is with you for the whole evening, which also means the practice-English and tea-ceremony approaches that work this waterfront on first nights do not reach you. - What changed: three weeks ago you were looking at a wall built to keep things out. Tonight you are standing on the edge that let everything in. - Stay: Shanghai - Meals: Breakfast at the hotel ### Day 20 — A garden that only goes in circles The last easy day of the twenty-one. Nothing today is bigger than a courtyard. - Yu Garden and the old city: pavilions, rockery, ponds and paths that refuse to run straight, dropped inside the oldest quarter of the city. Flat the whole way, about two hours. After three weeks of imperial scale and geological scale, this is deliberately the smallest thing on the route. - Shanghai Museum: bronzes, ceramics, painting and applied arts, arranged by material rather than by dynasty, which is the arrangement that finally makes the last three weeks line up. Your reservation is booked by us because the system's English coverage is limited. Two galleries properly, not all of them quickly. - The rest of the day: nothing is scheduled after the museum. This is the third of the three easy days and the last one before you fly. - Stay: Shanghai - Meals: Breakfast at the hotel ### Day 21 — Plane trees, then the water one more time A morning at street scale and a short crossing, then the airport. The route ends on the same element it turned on. - Former French Concession and Wukang Road: plane-tree streets, historic houses and small independent shops, at a scale that has nothing to do with last night's skyline. The walk shortens to fit your flight time. - Huangpu River ferry: you cross on the boat people take to work, standing at the rail with commuters and their scooters rather than on a sightseeing deck; the fare is included. Twenty-one days that started at a wall finish on moving water. Halfway across you'll realize you have been reading the riverbank the whole trip. - Airport drop-off: your driver takes you to the airport, timed to your flight with room to spare. If a late flight leaves the day open, tell us and we plan the gap around your check-out rather than around a schedule. - Stay: Trip ends - Meals: Breakfast at the hotel ## Hotels ### Shanghai Royal Garden Hotel (Shanghai International Resort) - City: Shanghai - Description: Shanghai Royal Garden Hotel: a luxury garden hotel near Pudong Airport and Disneyland, with free shuttle service to both. - Image: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/a07e8f886100.jpg ### Hilton Chengdu Chenghua - City: Chengdu - Description: A practical Chengdu base for travellers who want easy city access, relaxed days out, and a comfortable return after sightseeing. - Image: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/3pup59R7.webp ### Atour Hotel Chengdu Taikoo Li Chunxi Road Pedestrian Street - City: Chengdu - Description: A simple Chengdu stay near Chunxi Road, good for travellers who want easy walks, food stops, and short city transfers. - Image: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/bUOsDqAb.webp ### Pullman Zhangjiajie - City: zhangjiajie - Description: A comfortable Zhangjiajie base for travellers who want an easier return after long days around the national forest park. - Image: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/cvVCOIej.webp ### Pullman Zhangjiajie Hotel - City: Zhangjiajie - Description: Pullman Zhangjiajie, in Wulingyuan District, offers easy access to the UNESCO-listed Wulingyuan Scenic Area plus taxi pickup. - Image: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/9PAgozjd.webp ### Beijing Marriott Hotel Northeast - City: Beijing - Description: International high-end hotel in Beijing, suitable for business and city stays. - Image: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/bWOFYezP.jpg ### DoubleTree by Hilton Beijing East Third Ring Road - City: Beijing - Description: International upscale hotel in Beijing, suitable for business and leisure stays. - Image: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/kkFJOiOe.webp ### Chongqing Marriott Hotel - City: chongqing - Description: A reliable Chongqing stay for travellers who want comfort after exploring the city’s hills, rivers, bridges, and night views. - Image: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/i6e7PjRG.webp ### Wuyu Sky Garden Hotel - City: Chongqing - Description: A curated hotel option in Chongqing, used as the shared route hotel resource. - Image: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/6vN1tgqi.webp ### Bellagio by MGM Shanghai on the Bund - City: Shanghai - Description: A curated hotel option in Shanghai, used as the shared route hotel resource. - Image: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/9u9jCkFL.webp ### Pullman Shanghai Zhongganghui Hotel - City: Shanghai - Description: Pullman Shanghai Zhongganghui Hotel, in Dapuqiao near Tianzifang, steps from Metro Line 9 and the Expo site. - Image: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/5xOD9FRB.webp ### Shangri-La Hotel - City: Xian - Description: Shangri-La Hotel Xi'an: five-star luxury near the Terracotta Warriors, 35 minutes from the airport. - Image: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/ldYT8r2G.webp ### Sheraton Xi'an North City Hotel - City: Xian - Description: Sheraton Xi'an North City: five-star luxury five minutes from the Daming Palace, with an indoor pool and wellness centre. - Image: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/k01OUBYw.jpg ### Pagoda Hotel Chongqing Jiefangbei - City: Chongqing - Description: Pagoda Hotel Chongqing Jiefangbei - Image: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/7Lg2DSnY.webp ### Zhangjiajie Rezen One S Hotel - City: Zhangjiajie - Description: An upscale city hotel offering comfortable accommodation, dining, and meeting facilities, making it an ideal base for travelers exploring Zhangjiajie’s scenic attractions. - Image: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/e9wULwWK.webp ### Hilton Beijing - City: Beijing - Description: Established international hotel in Beijing with reliable service and central access. - Image: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/jU1EgACp.webp ### Atour S Hotel Shanghai Hongqiao Centre Aegean - City: Shanghai - Description: Atour S Hotel in Hongqiao: steps from Aegean Place and Metro Line 10, six km from the National Exhibition and Convention Center. - Image: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/ciHY2Qvs.webp ### The Temple House - City: Chengdu - Description: Boutique luxury hotel inside a restored Qing-dynasty courtyard near Taikoo Li with one of Chengdu's strongest design statements. - Image: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/2Dh9ApbX.webp ### The Westin Yichang - City: Yichang - Description: A curated hotel option in Yichang, used as the shared route hotel resource. - Image: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/7CS9CS1K.webp ### Sofitel Beijing Central - City: Beijing - Description: Luxury international hotel in central Beijing with refined comfort and service. - Image: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/itT5uc1l.webp ## Included / Excluded ### What's Included - Private vehicle: Air-conditioned private vehicle for all listed touring in the six cities: Beijing · Xi'an · Chengdu · Chongqing · Zhangjiajie · Shanghai; Beijing airport pickup on day one and Shanghai airport drop-off on day twenty-one; hotel and station transfers for every rail leg, hotel and airport transfers for the day nineteen flight, hotel to pier in Chongqing on day twelve and Yichang to station and station to hotel on day fifteen - Guide: Licensed English-speaking guide on every touring day in each of the six cities, including the full Dujiangyan and Mount Qingcheng day and the evening programs on days six, seventeen and nineteen - Rail and air: Beijing to Xi'an on day four; Xi'an to Chengdu on day seven; Chengdu to Dujiangyan and back on day nine; Chengdu to Chongqing on day eleven; Yichang to Zhangjiajie on day fifteen; the Zhangjiajie to Shanghai flight on day nineteen. Class of travel on all six sectors is being finalized: until it is settled, every quote states in writing the class booked for that order, and no order is taken without it - Hotels: 17 hotel nights at your chosen level, four-star, five-star or quality boutique, breakfast included: Beijing 3 · Xi'an 3 · Chengdu 4 · Chongqing 1 · Zhangjiajie 4 · Shanghai 2 - Meals: 17 hotel breakfasts, days two to twelve and days sixteen to twenty-one; one tea sitting, one gaiwan per guest at the People's Park teahouse on day eight with refills for as long as you sit. No lunch and no dinner is in the base price - Tickets and experiences, Beijing: The Forbidden City with the timed reservation booked by us · Jingshan Park · Mutianyu Great Wall entry with the uphill cable car or open chairlift · Tian'anmen Square with the security registration done by us · Temple of Heaven · National Museum of China with the reservation booked by us - Tickets and experiences, Xi'an: The Terracotta Warriors museum entry · Xi'an City Wall entry with bicycle hire on the wall, walking a section instead is the same price · Giant Wild Goose Pagoda grounds entry · Bell and Drum Tower square and the Muslim Quarter by night, guide accompanied - Tickets and experiences, Chengdu and Dujiangyan: Chengdu panda base morning entry · Dujiangyan irrigation works entry · Mount Qingcheng temple visit with a conversation with a resident priest and a taiji session · Kuanzhai Alley and Taikoo Li walk · community Sichuan opera theater with a look backstage and face-changing at close range - Tickets and experiences, Chongqing: Liziba monorail ride through the residential tower with the metro fare included · a guided walking line through the vertical city. The stops on that walking line are not fixed in advance and are not promised: your guide sets them on the day - Tickets and experiences, Zhangjiajie: Zhangjiajie National Forest Park entry · Bailong glass elevator both ways · Yuanjiajie · Tianzi Mountain · Golden Whip Stream with the walking length set on the day · Tianmen Mountain entry with the return passenger cableway · the Tianmen cliff walkway, where a solid-floor path runs beside every glass section · Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon glass bridge entry, where a solid-floor path also runs alongside - Tickets and experiences, Shanghai: The Bund and the Pudong skyline in the evening, guide accompanied · Yu Garden and the old city entry · Shanghai Museum with the reservation booked by us · former French Concession and Wukang Road walk · Huangpu River ferry crossing with the fare included - In-park conveyances, named one by one: Included: the Mutianyu uphill cable car or open chairlift · the Bailong glass elevator both ways · the Tianmen Mountain return passenger cableway. Being finalized: the Tianzi Mountain cableway and the forest park shuttle buses, whose pricing basis is not settled; until it is, every quote states in writing whether those two sit inside that order's base price. Not included: every other cableway, lift, shuttle and toboggan inside any scenic area, priced separately when you choose it - Conditional items, included when they run: The Tianmen Mountain evening lighting program on day seventeen is attended when it is operating on your confirmed date and carries no separate charge when it is. The Tujia brocade workshop on day eighteen is hands-on when the workshop is open that day and a visit only when it is not. Neither is promised and neither is a highlight of this route - Insurance: Travel accident insurance for the land segments in China. The policy is being finalized: until it is, every quote states in writing the insurance placed for that order ### Not Included - International flights: Flights into Beijing and out of Shanghai, and any connecting sector needed to reach Beijing - Visas: Visa fees and processing for guests who need a Chinese visa, including all US guests on this route - The Yangtze segment: Days twelve to fifteen. The cruise ticket and everything aboard the ship are not in the base price and are not a highlight of this route, because no cabin is secured yet - Meals: Every lunch and every dinner. Your guide recommends and books; the bill is on your account - Climbing tickets sold on top of an entry ticket: Climbing the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda itself · climbing the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower - In-park conveyances outside the included list: Every cableway, lift, shuttle and toboggan not named as included above, including the Mutianyu descent by toboggan - Optional add-ons: The Mutianyu descent by toboggan is sold only as an add-on, never bundled into the base plan and never listed as a highlight. Its pricing is being finalized and it is not offered until it is priced - Personal: Gratuities, single or extra-room difference, personal spending, laundry ### Special Notes A few things on this route follow the calendar, the season or a supplier's confirmation. Here they are, told straight. - Bookings are not open yet: three things have to be real first. One, a cabin held on a named sailing. Two, the cabin grade chosen and written into the inclusions. Three, the ship operator confirming in writing the English-language service level on board. Until all three are done we take no orders and no deposits. Tell us your dates and we will write to you on the day it opens. - What the four Yangtze days are and are not: they are a four-day three-night sailing from Chongqing to Yichang, and the shore program on days thirteen to fifteen above is the operator's own published one. They are not purchased by us and not sold to you here: no ticket, no cabin, no meal aboard and no service level is in the price you would be quoted today. When procurement lands, they move into the inclusions and this note changes. - Departure dates: the sailing runs once a week, so the whole twenty-one days can only start on a Monday. In October 2026 the available Mondays are October 12, October 19 and October 26. In November they are November 2 and November 9. A November 16 start is quoted only after the operator confirms that sailing in writing. Nothing departs October 1 to 7, the national holiday week, when the Terracotta Warriors site and the Bailong elevator queue at their heaviest. Nothing departs after November 16, because the ship's operating season ends on November 27, 2026. - Why Monday: a Monday start puts day two on a Tuesday, which keeps the Forbidden City morning off the palace's Monday closing day. If you want a different departure weekday, the Yangtze segment no longer fits and we answer that request as a separate plan rather than as this route. - Day fifteen is a tight connection: the operator's dam visit occupies the morning and its bus reaches the Yichang visitor center around midday, so the train to Zhangjiajie that day is an afternoon one by design. That connection is checked against the published timetable order by order before your date is confirmed, and the autumn timetable on that sector has not yet been verified for these dates. - Class of travel: the class on all six rail and air sectors is being finalized. Until it is settled, your quote states in writing the class booked for your order, and no order is taken without it in writing. - Two in-park conveyances: the Tianzi Mountain cableway and the forest park shuttle buses have not had their pricing basis settled. Your quote states in writing whether those two sit inside your base price, so that nothing is assumed to be included that is not. - Heights: Zhangjiajie has two glass sections on this route, the Tianmen cliff walkway and the Grand Canyon glass bridge. Both have a solid-floor path running alongside, so no one has to walk on glass to complete a day. - Reaching Beijing: direct service into Beijing is not full from Italy, Spain, Portugal or Greece. It is not full from Australia or New Zealand either. Guests from those markets connect through a third hub or through another Chinese gateway. We check the routing before quoting, and when the connection lands at another Chinese gateway we say plainly that the domestic sector into Beijing is on your own ticket and is not in our price. - Visa window: the 30-day visa-free policy currently runs through December 31, 2026. A 21-day trip departing on or before December 11, 2026 finishes inside that window, and every departure date offered above finishes inside it. - US passports: the US is not on the 30-day visa-free list, and 21 days is more than double the stay the 10-day visa-free transit policy allows. Every US guest on this route holds a valid Chinese tourist or business visa, ten-year multiple entry included. Visa fees and processing are not included, and we confirm visa status before any payment is taken. Guests who entered China under the transit policy cannot take this trip, and we say so before payment rather than working around it. - Confirmation and changes: the confirmation-time commitment and the change and refund terms are being finalized with our ground partners and with the ship operator. Until they are settled, each quote states in writing its own confirmation deadline and its change and refund conditions. One structural fact worth knowing now: the ship holds no space without a named booking and sells first come first served, so a date change on this route moves the whole twenty-one days to another Monday rather than moving one segment. ## Is Twenty-one Days Your Length? Fewer than twenty-one days? ### Fewer than twenty-one days? The corridor comes apart cleanly. Beijing and Xi'an stand on their own as a first week; Chengdu with Dujiangyan is a self-contained block; Zhangjiajie and Shanghai make a shorter second half without the river. Tell us your dates and who is coming, and we cut days rather than cut the pace. ## Good to Know - Group: Private, just your party. From 1 guest. No fixed maximum party size. - Pace: Six cities in 21 days: Beijing 3 nights, Xi'an 3, Chengdu 4, Chongqing 1, Zhangjiajie 4, Shanghai 2, plus 3 nights on the river. Three easy days on days eight, fourteen and twenty - Effort: Moderate. Every major climb has a cable car or a lift; the Heaven's Gate stairway is the one steep piece and it is optional; both glass sections have a solid-floor path alongside - Ports: Beijing in, Shanghai out; airport pickup on day one and drop-off on day twenty-one - Visas: UK and most European passports enter visa-free for days. Canadian, Australian and New Zealand passports do the same, checked order by order against your dates. US passports need a Chinese tourist or business visa for this route - Language: Licensed English-speaking local guides on every touring day, city by city. The English-language service level aboard the ship is not yet confirmed by the operator, which is one reason this route is not on sale - Payment: When this route opens for booking: From 1 guest. A 10% deposit (minimum $399) locks your dates. The balance is due 14 days before departure. "Or similar" never means a quiet downgrade - Season: Selling window October to December 2026. Monday departures only, and only on the dates listed in Special Notes; nothing October 1 to 7 and nothing after November 16 ## Your Private Concierge - Name: Jason Hu - Title: Private China Route Concierge - Tagline: A bilingual planning desk for tailor-made China journeys. - Bio: Our China team tunes pacing, hotels and local hosts around each route style. - Avatar image: https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/c0TBypRh.png ### Stats - 20+ Years - 300+ Trips designed - 24/7 On-trip care ### The Conversation Every LyrikTrip journey begins with a conversation. Tell us your dates and who's coming — and if this length isn't right for you, we'll say so and shape a shorter arc. First reply within four hours; a clear price for your dates within one business day. - CTA: Start the conversation ### Step 01: Tell us what excites you Not your dates and budget — your curiosity. Where have you always wanted to go? What do you want to feel? We start there. - 24h: First concept delivered ### Step 02: We design it around you Your specialist builds the itinerary from scratch — routes, hosts, hotels, and experiences you won't find anywhere else. - 100%: Bespoke, never off-the-shelf ### Step 03: Lock it in with 10% When the plan feels right, a 10% deposit holds your entire trip. Balance due 30 days before departure. - 10%: Deposit to secure everything ### Step 04: Travel. We handle the rest. Your Trip Pack arrives before you fly. On the road, your concierge is one message away — for the expected and everything you didn't plan for. - 24/7: Support throughout your journey - Free cancellation up to 30 days - English-speaking concierge - Secure payment via Stripe - CTA: Talk to Us ## Guest Reviews - Overall rating: 4.9 - Total reviews: 523 - Count label: from 523 verified reviews 4.9 / 5 ### Platforms - google: 4.9 (312 reviews) - tripadvisor: 5.0 (211 reviews) - Filter tabs: All, Google, TripAdvisor - Emily Carter (🇺🇸 Seattle, USA · 5★ · May 2026 · google): Perfect for couples - My partner and I had an amazing time in China. Everything was arranged for us — transfers, hotels, guides. No stress at all. - Claire Brooks (🇬🇧 London, UK · 5★ · Apr 2026 · tripadvisor): Great for families - Traveled with my two kids and had zero issues. The team made sure the pace wasn't too rushed and included things the kids would enjoy. Communication was easy throughout. Will definitely use them again for our next Asia trip. - Laura Bennett (🇨🇦 Toronto, Canada · 5★ · Mar 2026 · google): Alisa made the whole experience easy - Alisa was our point of contact throughout and she was brilliant — patient, knowledgeable, and always quick to reply. The trip itself was wonderful. Beijing and Guilin were highlights. - Mark Henderson (🇺🇸 Denver, USA · 4★ · Feb 2026 · tripadvisor): Good service, minor hiccup but sorted quickly - Really good service. There was a small mix-up with one of our restaurant bookings but it got sorted quickly. The rest of the trip was seamless. - Rebecca Miller (🇺🇸 Boston, USA · 5★ · Jan 2026 · google): Really listened to what we wanted - Really helpful team. They listened to what we wanted and delivered. Beijing and Xi'an were incredible. ## China Ready We've solved the hard parts. Here's everything a first-time Western traveler needs to know before arriving. ### VPN & Internet Access - Badge: Do this before you fly - What's blocked: Google, Gmail, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and most Western news sites are inaccessible in China without a VPN. - Download before you leave: It's nearly impossible to download a VPN once inside China. Install and test at home. Recommended: Astrill (most reliable), Mullvad, ExpressVPN — subscribe to at least two in case one stops working. - Hotel Wi-Fi tip: Some hotels block VPN connections on their Wi-Fi. Use your phone's mobile data as a hotspot if the VPN drops. - Good news: WhatsApp works perfectly through a VPN, so your messaging stays unchanged. Apple iMessage and Signal also work. ### Paying in China - Badge: Your concierge sets this up on Day 1 - China is cashless: Alipay and WeChat Pay are used for almost everything — restaurants, taxis, markets, tickets. Cash is rarely accepted in cities. - International cards now work: Foreign Visa/Mastercard can now link directly to Alipay (set up in minutes, $5,000 single transaction limit). Your concierge walks you through the setup on your first morning. - Carry some cash: We recommend ¥500–800 RMB in cash for the rare vendor that won't accept digital payment, and for small towns. - Booking this trip: Your deposit and balance are charged via Stripe — the same trusted platform used by Airbnb and Booking.com. USD billing, no surprise conversion fees. ### Visa & Entry - Badge: We handle the paperwork - Do you need a visa?: Most US, UK, EU, Australian, Canadian, and New Zealand passport holders need a tourist (L) visa for stays over 10 days. We provide a visa invitation letter with every booking — it significantly speeds up approval. - 240-hour visa-free transit: Citizens of 55+ countries (including USA, UK, most of EU, AUS, NZ, Canada) can enter China visa-free for up to 10 days if transiting through eligible ports. This covers our 12-day itinerary only if you have a confirmed onward flight. - Processing time: Apply 4–6 weeks before departure. Standard processing: 4–7 business days. Express (3 days) and same-day options available at most Chinese consulates. - What we provide: Visa invitation letter, hotel confirmation for all nights, suggested itinerary document — everything the consulate needs, formatted correctly. ### Safety & Practical Tips - Badge: Our responsibility, always - Is China safe?: China consistently ranks among the safest countries for foreign tourists. Violent crime against visitors is extremely rare. Cities have extensive CCTV coverage and a visible police presence. - Emergency numbers: Police: 110. Ambulance: 120. Your concierge is your first call for any non-emergency situation — she has local contacts for every city on the itinerary. - Health & medications: Bring a full supply of any prescription medication. International pharmacies exist in major cities but may not carry your brand. Travel insurance is required — we can recommend policies that cover China specifically. - Language: English fluency outside hotels and tourist sites is limited. Your guides all speak English. We provide a printed pocket card with essential Chinese phrases and emergency contacts for every traveler. ## Before You Book Everything worth knowing before you book. ### Twenty-one days is a long trip. Will it drag? It is built so that it does not. One idea runs through the whole route, walls then water then stone, and each day carries one piece of it rather than three unrelated sights. Three days are deliberately easy, on days eight, fourteen and twenty, and you unpack once for four nights in Chengdu and again for four in Zhangjiajie. Twenty-one days could hold nine hotel changes; this plan uses six. ### You say the Yangtze days are not sold. So what am I actually buying? Right now, nothing: this route is not open for booking at all, and that is the honest answer. Three things have to be true first, a cabin held on a named sailing, the cabin grade chosen and written into the inclusions, and the operator confirming in writing the English-language service on board. We will not take a deposit against a segment we have not bought. What is already settled is the other seventeen days: the six cities with their guides and vehicles, the rail and air sectors, and the tickets named one by one in the inclusions above. Tell us your dates and we write to you the day the river segment lands. ### I am not good with heights. Does Zhangjiajie rule me out? No. There are exactly two glass sections on this route, the Tianmen cliff walkway on day seventeen and the Grand Canyon glass bridge on day eighteen, and each has a solid-floor path running beside it that goes to the same places. The Bailong elevator and the Tianmen cableway are enclosed cabins. The one steep climb, the stairway up to Heaven's Gate, is optional and the arch reads just as well from the bottom. Tell your guide on day one and the whole Zhangjiajie block is walked on stone. ### Why can we only start on a Monday? Because the sailing this route hangs on runs once a week, and everything before and after it is timed to reach the pier on the right day. A Monday start has a second benefit: day two lands on a Tuesday, which keeps the Forbidden City morning off the palace's Monday closing day. If Monday does not work for you, the river segment stops fitting and we will design you a different plan rather than bend this one and hope. ### Do we need a visa? Most guests on this route do not. UK and most European passports enter visa-free for stays days. Canadian, Australian and New Zealand passports do the same. Before you pay we check your 21 days plus any other days in China against that window. The current policy runs through December 31, 2026, so a departure on or before December 11, 2026 finishes inside it, and every date we offer does. US passports are different: the US is not on that list and 21 days is more than double what the 10-day transit policy allows, so every US guest holds a Chinese tourist or business visa, with the fee and the appointment their own. We confirm visa status before any payment, and if the dates do not fit we say so instead of selling.