10-Day Beijing, Xi’an, Hangzhou, Suzhou & Shanghai

Your English-speaking guide waits past baggage claim at either Beijing Capital International Airport or Beijing Daxing International Airport, holding a name board and helping with luggage before the private car ride into the city. The drive to your downtown hotel doubles as an orientation, with the guide pointing out ring roads, hutongs and the layout of the old capital. Lunch is not included today, so depending on arrival time you can eat at the airport or ask the guide for a noodle shop near the hotel. The afternoon and evening are free: nap off the flight, walk the neighbourhood, or take a short taxi to a nearby market. Your guide confirms tomorrow's pickup time before saying goodbye.

Start early at Tiananmen Square, walking the vast granite expanse past the Monument to the People's Heroes before crossing beneath the portrait gate into the Forbidden City. Your guide leads you through the outer court halls and the imperial living quarters, explaining court ritual and the symbolism of the yellow roofs; allow roughly two and a half hours inside. Lunch is arranged at a local restaurant near the east gate, ordered family-style with a few Beijing classics (own expense). In the afternoon drive northwest to the Summer Palace, following the Long Corridor beside Kunming Lake and climbing to the hilltop pavilion for the view. A photo stop at the Bird's Nest and Water Cube closes the sightseeing. Dinner is your own; the evening is free.

Meals: Breakfast

An early departure beats the coaches to Mutianyu, the quieter restored section of the Great Wall of China, about seventy kilometres north of the city. A round-trip cable car lifts you to the rampart, then you walk between Ming guard towers, with the wall stepping along the ridge and forest dropping away on both sides; two hours is comfortable. Lunch is at a countryside restaurant at the base, simple farm cooking, paid locally. Back in Beijing the afternoon belongs to the Confucius Temple and the adjoining Imperial College Museum, where stone steles record centuries of examination candidates. Finish with a wander through the surrounding hutongs and coffee in a courtyard conversion, then transfer to the hotel. Evening at leisure.

Meals: Breakfast

Morning at the Temple of Heaven, entered through the long cypress park where retired Beijingers practise tai chi, dance and fly kites. The guide walks you through the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, its blue-glazed triple roof built without a single nail, and explains the winter solstice rites emperors performed here. Lunch near the park gate is on your own account, then a transfer to Beijing West Railway Station for the high-speed train to Xi'an, roughly five hours at 300 km/h, with the North China Plain giving way to the Loess Plateau and finally the Qinling foothills. Your Xi'an guide meets you at Xi'an North Station and drives you to the city-centre hotel. The evening is free; try biangbiang noodles around the hotel.

Meals: Breakfast

The day opens with the drive east to Lintong and the Terracotta Army, where three excavation pits hold thousands of life-size infantry, archers and charioteers, each face modelled separately. Two hours with a site guide covers Pit 1's battle formation and the bronze chariots in the museum hall. Lunch at a Lintong restaurant is paid directly, often a set menu of Shaanxi dishes. Returning to the city in the afternoon, climb the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, the Tang-era brick tower built to house monk Xuanzang's sutras, then slip into the Great Mosque, a seventh-century prayer hall hidden behind Chinese-style courtyards. Muslim Quarter follows for skewers and sesame bread, ending at the floodlit Bell Tower and Drum Tower Square. Optional dumpling banquet or Tang show tonight.

Meals: Breakfast

Check out after breakfast and spend the morning on the Xi'an City Wall, the most complete Ming rampart in China, a fourteen-kilometre rectangle enclosing the old grid. Walk a stretch or rent a bicycle on the parapet and ride between the south and west gates, looking down onto tiled roofs and morning markets. Lunch is a quick bowl of roujiamo and liangpi near the South Gate, at your own cost. A private transfer then takes you to the airport for the flight to Hangzhou, about two and a quarter hours in the air. Your Hangzhou guide meets the arrival and drives you to the hotel in the lake district. The evening is unscheduled: walk to the shore for a first glimpse of West Lake after dark.

Meals: Breakfast

Morning on West Lake, a UNESCO site ringed by causeways and willow-lined banks. A small boat carries you to the Red Carp Pond, where orange fish crowd the railing beneath a pavilion, then on to the northwest shore for Lingyin Temple, founded in 326 AD and still one of the wealthiest Chan Buddhist monasteries in China. Across the path, the grottoes of Feilai Peak shelter more than three hundred carved Buddhas, some a thousand years old. Lunch is a vegetarian meal at the temple restaurant, settled on the spot. The afternoon climbs into the Longjing hills: at the Dragon Well tea plantation you pick leaves, watch the wok-firing and rolling, and sit through a formal tasting. The nearby China Tea Cultural Museum explains the trade. You are driven back to the hotel; the evening is open for lakeside walks.

Meals: Breakfast

An early high-speed train from Hangzhou to Suzhou takes about ninety minutes, crossing the Yangtze delta's canal country. Your Suzhou guide meets the platform and drives straight to the Master of the Nets Garden, a compact twelfth-century scholar's retreat where corridors frame each courtyard like scroll paintings and a mirrored pavilion doubles the pond. Lunch is a Suzhou noodle house near the garden, with shrimp roe noodles and squirrel-shaped fish, paid locally. The afternoon continues to Tongli Water Town, twenty kilometres out, where you cross the three-arch bridges, drift on a wooden boat through the lanes, and visit the Tuisi Garden. Late afternoon transfer to Suzhou Station for the thirty-minute train to Shanghai; your guide meets you on arrival and checks you into the hotel. Evening free.

Meals: Breakfast

Begin at the Shanghai Museum on People's Square, where bronzes, jades, Ming furniture and calligraphy scrolls fill galleries around a circular atrium; the ancient bronze room alone justifies an hour. Lunch is xiaolongbao at a Yu Garden-area dumpling house, at your own expense. Walk to The Bund afterwards, following the riverfront past the Customs House clock and the Peace Hotel, then turn up Nanjing Road for the pedestrian crush toward People's Square. The afternoon slows inside Yuyuan Garden, a Ming scholars' garden of rockeries, dragon walls and zigzag bridges, with the surrounding Yu Garden Bazaars for souvenirs. Finish in the Former French Concession, wandering plane-shaded Sinan Road and Dongping Road past villas and boutiques. Dinner is independent; the evening is yours.

Meals: Breakfast

After breakfast and check-out, a private car takes you to the airport or railway station for your onward flight or train; the drive to Pudong International Airport runs about an hour from the city centre, while Hongqiao is closer for domestic departures and high-speed rail. Your guide helps with luggage and confirms the terminal before leaving you at the departure gate. No sightseeing is scheduled today, but if your flight is late, ask the guide to hold the car and use the morning for a last walk along the Huangpu River promenade or a coffee in the old lanes near the hotel. Lunch and dinner are not included. Tour services end at the terminal.

Meals: Breakfast