11-Day Private Tour to Beijing,Datong,Pingyao,Xi'an,Luoyang and Chengdu

In the morning,your tour guide can meet you at your Beijing hotel lobby at 8:00am.Then, you will be escorted to the Tiananmen Square first.

At Tiananmen Square, you can take great photos of the Tiananmen Tower, Monument to People's Heroes, and Memorial Hall of Chairman Mao. The Tiananmen Square is seated in the center of Beijing City. During the past hundreds of years, it has witnessed numerous historical events and assemblies. Nowadays, it becomes a holding place for grand celebrations, military parades, and welcoming ceremonies for foreign leaders. Besides, visitors can admire the towering Monument to People's Heroes and the solemn Memorial Hall of Chairman Mao on the square. Traditional Tiananmen Tower, Zhengyang Gate and Qianmen Arrow Tower can also be found there.

Then, you will be led to go across the Tiananmen Tower to visit the Forbidden City, where 24 emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368 - 1911) lived and handled national affairs. Served as the imperial palace during the Ming and Qing dynasties, the Forbidden City is the largest and the best-preserved old wooden complex in the world. The whole palace is divided into Inner Court and Outer Court by the Palace of Heavenly Purity with the outer one for emperors to handle affairs and the inner one as the living place for the imperial family. The complex is also a giant museum with more than one million national treasures exhibited there.

Upon arrival in the parking lot of the scenic area, you will first take an electric car to the entry, and then take the chairlift up to the 14th watchtower. Have a leisurely hike on the wall for about 2 hours, at the end take the toboggan town. The Great Wall at Mutianyu was built and restored in the early Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644) and is one of the most famous sections of the Wall. Mutianyu enjoys the great reputation of "Out of all the Great Walls, Mutianyu stands apart". Roam the ancient structure and learn the history and facts that make its so famous. Your professional guide will be able to answer any questions and offer exclusive stories and facts about the Mutianyu Great Wall.

At the end, you will escort you to your Beijing hotel.

In the morning, your guide and driver will pick you up from your hotel and continue your Beijing tour.

You will firstly visit the Temple of Heaven. It is the largest royal ceremonial building groups in China. Emperors in the past used to hold the annual sacrificial activities here to worship the heaven and pray for a good harvest. Now it has developed into a large park where you can also see local people doing exercises and more recreational activities.

Next you will continue your visit to Beijing Hutong. There you will take a rickshaw to go through the old alleys and pay a visit to a Hutong family to see how the old Beijingers live. There are many popular restaurants, cafes and local food stores in the area, so we may have a lunch there. It should be a good chance to taste the local food there. Your guide will offer you suggestions. After lunch, you could stroll around Houhai Lake and explore more of the Hutong area.

After the Hutong visit, then will drive you to the Lama Temple, which is regarded as the largest Buddhist temple in Beijing. It combines the various architectural styles of different groups, including Han, Manchu, Mongol and Tibet. Opened to tourists from 1981, there are hundreds of thousands of people coming here for praying and visiting every year.

An about 30-minute drive will take you to the Summer Palace, which is reputed as the museum of ancient royal gardens. Your expert guide will show you around. The whole garden mainly consists of the Longevity Hill and the Kunming Lake. The Long Corridor, seven hundred twenty-eight meters (796.2 yards) in length, boasts as the longest corridor in Chinese gardens. Beginning from the Yaoyue (Inviting-Moon) Gate and ending up with Shizhang Pavilion, the corridor ingeniously links Longevity Hill with Kunming Lake. You might appreciate the exquisite murals and enjoy the melodious music while walking along there.

Finally,your guide and driver will escort you to the Beijing train station and take a bullet train to Datong, you may take the G2523 19:39--21:59. The train takes around 2.5hrs.

Upon arrival at Datong, you will be picked up on time and transferred to the hotel(Driver only, no guide).

In the morning, Your guide meet you at Datong hotel at 8:30am and drive one hour to Hanging Monastery.

The renowned Hanging Monastery, which looks like a grand relief inlaid on the steep cliff. It will be a thrilling experience to go along the hanging walkways to visit each hall of the temple. It is unique that the hierarchs of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism are worshiped here together.

Upon arrival at the Yungang Grottoes, your guide will accompany you as you to go around viewing more than 59,000 solemn Buddha statues made during the Northern Wei Dynasty (386 - 534). Considered to be a treasure house of Buddhist arts, Yungang Grottoes took over 70 years to reach the present scale. The sculptures there integrate the superb artistry of Northern Wei and showcase the atmospheric and imperial style. You are sure to feel astonished by the magnificent scene there.

At the end, your guide will escort you to Datong railway station and take a train to Pingyao, you may take the D5375 17:55-21:17, the tain takes around 3.5hrs.

Upon arrival at Pingyao, you will be picked up on time and transferred to the hotel.

Your Pingyao ancient town tour will begin with a visit to the City Wall of Pingyao, which has been well preserved. As a whole, the rectangular wall resembles a tortoise, which was considered as a symbol of longevity traditionally. Ascending the wall, you could overlook the ancient city of Pingyao.

Then, get down from the wall and have a stroll on the traditional Ming-Qing Street. On both sides of this not very wide street, there are many buildings in ancient Chinese architecture style, which used to be firms, exchange shops and different kinds of shops like teashop, cloth shop and salt shop. Nowadays, some of them have been turned to hotels, restaurants or shops selling souvenirs while some have been preserved as attraction sites and museums.

Next, pay a visit to Pingyao Ancient Government Office, which is located in the middle of the ancient city for more than 600 years. Covering about 26,000 square meters (31,095 square yards), it includes many majestic courtyards and buildings. The Security Guard Company is also worth seeing for it is a museum which introduces the development of the ancient Chinese security guards.

After lunch, you will proceed to Ri Sheng Chang Exchange Shop and Tong Xing Gong. Ri Sheng Chang Exchange Shop is the first money exchange shop in China as well as the founder of Chinese modern banks, which has played an important role in Chinese financial business for about one century. Tong Xing Gong was an establishment which provided private escort service for the exchange shops to guard their safety during transportation.

At the end, your guide will escort you to your hotel.

Your guide will pick you up at the lobby of your Pingyao hotel at around 09:00 in the morning. You will be escorted to the well-known Wang Family's Compound in around 1.5 hours' ride.

It is a large and magnificent architectural complex originally built around 250 years ago and Located in Lingshi County in Shanxi Province, the Wang Family's Compound is 35 kilometers (22 miles) away from Pingyao Ancient City. This luxurious residence was originally built during 1762-1811 by the descendants of the Wang Family. What makes this compound so impressive are the sheer size and gorgeous ornamental structures. It is like a mini walled city with more than 200 courtyards, each of them has its own distinctive features. The intricately carved wood doors, window casings, stairways, stone carvings, etc. could be found everywhere in the courtyards.

After lunch, the tour continues to Zhangbi Ancient Fortress where you will go through the maze-like underground tunnels. Different from the compounds and ancient city, Zhangbi Ancient Fortress is an exception of Shanxi merchants' culture. To resist the invasion of enemies, Chinese ancestors made full use of its geographic advantages and built a 10,000-meter long underground military tunnels with three floors in the village. Zhangbi Ancient Fortress is a complex of historical relics, tombs, residences and tunnels, in which the labyrinth-like underground tunnels are the most interesting.

At the end, drive you back to Pingyao Railway Station where a train to Xi'an is waiting for you(D2571 18:37-21:40). The train takes around 3 hours.

Upon arrival at Xi'an, you will be picked up on time and transferred to the hotel(Driver only, no guide).

In the morning,your tour guide can meet you at your Xi'an hotel lobby at 9:00am then transfer to Terracotta Warriors Museum, need 80 minutes driving,45km.

As the former capital of China, Xi’an was the seat of the Chinese Emperor for more than 10 dynasties over a period of 1,000 years. On this full-day, 8-hour private tour you will visit one of the highlights of Xi’an, the thousands of life-sized terracotta warriors in the superb mausoleum museum. Visiting the Terracotta Warriors and Horses is a highlight of any Xi'an tour, and gives you the chance to see more than 8,000 life-size Qin Dynasty-era model soldiers. Discovered in 1974, the warriors are located to the east of Emperor Qin Shihuang's Tomb, where the man who first unified China is buried. Among the three pits, No. 1 pit is the largest, containing more than 6,000 clay warriors and horses in 11 three-meter deep corridors. Since their discovery, the warriors have captured the world’s imagination as they have traveled the globe, from England to America to Chile.

Next, you will Transfer to Small Wild Goose Pagoda which is located inside Jianfu Temple, about one kilometer south of Xi'an city proper. It is one of the two famous and important Buddhist pagodas erected in the Tang Dynasty about 1300 years ago. Small Wild Goose Pagoda and its large neighbor, Big Wild Goose Pagoda, are two important Buddhist sites, dating back to the Tang Dynasty, 1300 years ago. The two pagodas were a symbol of Chang'an (Constant Peace) city. Xi'an (West Peace) was called Chang'an until the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), when Beijing became the capital of China. Chang'an had served as the capital for ten dynasties.

After lunch,you will Transfer to city wall.You can walking or cycling around the wall, the bike fees you pay locally if you do that. The first landmark visitors will encounter in Xian is the ancient City Wall, which stretches round the old city. It is also one of the most famous attractions in Xian. Today, this wall represents one of the oldest and best preserved Chinese city walls, as well being one of the largest ancient military defensive systems in the world.

Your last stop will be the Muslim Bazaar, the most thriving area of the city. If you are interested, you can explore the bazaar at your own pace and then return to the hotel by yourself. Your guide will give you directions for returning to your hotel. The Great Mosque and the Bell and Drum Tower Square are within walking distance of the Bazaar. There are many boutique stores at fair prices in Bazaar and also a number of excellent choices of food for dinner. If you prefer not to tour the Muslim Bazaar, will take you back to the hotel. End of the tour services.

At the end, your guide will escort you to your hotel.

In the morning,your tour guide will meet you at your Xi'an hotel lobby at 8:30am then transfer to Hanyanglin,need 30 minutes driving,15km.

The Hanyangling Mausoleum, which is on the site of the Mausoleum of Western Han Emperor Liu Qi built in 153 AD. In the company of the guide, you will have a close look at the thousand-year-old tombs through the glass floors and the glass walls in the tomb pits. Besides, the advanced Spectra Vision program will reproduce the real life of the Western Han Dynasty about 2,000 years ago. You will have two hours exploring the site.

After lunch, you continue Xi'an tour to explore Shaanxi History Museum. Unique historical and culture heritage of Shaanxi is undoubted worth the praise as treasure house of Chinese civilization, and Shaanxi History Museum is definitely a palace of art to display Shaanxi's history and culture and China's ancient civilization. There are as many as some 370,000 antiquities collected, ranging from prehistorical relics to that of the 1840s. Time spans more than one million years and the collection is superior in value, quantity, rank and species. Your guide will provide professional full explanations.

Instead of entering the temple to visit the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda, you will have a photo stop here for half an hour. With suggestions from our former guests, it is enough to see the pagoda and the statue of Monk Xuanzang at the south square outside the temple. As a well-preserved ancient building and a holy place for Buddhists, the pagoda built during the Tang Dynasty was once the site for Xuanzang to translate the Buddhist sutras. Nowadays the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda Area has become the most popular area for both tourists and locals in Xi'an. It is truly a wonderful place to enjoy the charming night scenes and get relaxed. Around the pagoda, there is south square leading to the Great Tang All Day Mall, where you can appreciate many unique sculptures of Tang Dynasty styles and enjoy some classical music performances in public; also there is north square with the biggest musical fountain in Asia. It is free but with show time schedules.

At the end, your guide will escort you to Xi'an railway station and take a train to Luoyang. You may take the D670 17:59-19:33. The train takes around 1.5hrs.

Upon arrival at Luoyang, you will be picked up on time and transferred to the hotel(Driver only, no guide).

In the morning, your guide and driver will pick you up from your hotel at 9am and transfer to Longmen Grottoes.

You first will visit the the Longmen Grottoes, which is a treasure house of ancient stone-carving art. Carrying over 1500 years of history, Longmen Grottoes is the carving masterpiece, which went through over 400 years to complete, tracing back to AD 493 of Northern Wei dynasty. Now as the famous tourist site, it shows the bright period of Buddhist culture of ancient China.

Next, heading to Shaolin Temple and is reputed as the Number One Temple under Heaven which was listed as UNESCO’s World Cultural & Natural Heritage List in 2010 as part of the “Historic Monuments of Dengfeng.” The temple is the cradle of the Chinese Zen Buddhism and the Shaolin Martial Arts.

At the end, your guide will escort you to your hotel.

Today, there is no activities, just take a train to Chengdu. You may take a G2213 10:11-15:37, the train takes around 5.3hrs.

Upon arrival at Chengdu, you will be picked up on time and transferred to the hotel(Driver only, no guide).

In the morning, your driver and guide will meet you at 8:00am of your Chengdu hotel then transfer to Chengdu Panda Base, need 30 minutes driving, 15km.

The Chengdu's Giant Panda Breeding Research Base which is home to over 80 of China's iconic pandas. Most are of the familiar black and white variety, but the Base is also home to a number of the smaller, lesser-known red pandas. You'll view the animals eating and at play in a carefully maintained habitat that is as close to their natural environment as possible. You'll also learn how scientists and ecologists are working to protect the few remaining wild pandas and expand the captive population. On that last note, over 100 bears have been born at the Base since 1987. The Base became even more important after the Sichuan earthquake of 2008, with eight bears sent here from the badly damaged Wolong reserve. Your visit provides both moral and financial support for the ongoing conservation effort.

Next, go to Renmin Park and you know that park is a comprehensive garden for both the cultural heritages collection and entertainment. The locals in Chengdu often drink tea for relaxing here. You will never know what real lifestyle in the “Capital of Leisure” is like unless you visit Renmin Park. There are always crowds sitting in the shade of the park from when the sun rises. The best things to do here include going into a teahouse, ordering a cup of tea, reading for a whole afternoon, thinking about nothing, or chatting with some old friends. Enjoying the slow life in Chengdu, you may suddenly feel that you are leading a happy life.

After lunch, take the private car to Jinli old street which is an impressive trip to the famous old street. Time steals away from you quietly while walking on the lively streets which are full of delicious local snacks, delicate artifacts, interesting folk shows, etc.

At the end, your guide will escort you to your hotel.

After breakfast at your hotel,your driver and guide will meet you at your hotel lobby of 09:00am then transfer to the Leshan and need 2.5hrs driving, 150km.

Dating from the 8th century, the Giant Buddha of Leshan is the largest carved stone Buddha and the tallest pre-modern statue in the world. It was cut from the cliffs of Lingyun Shan in the hopes of calming the turbulent waters of the three rivers that flow together under its gaze. Stairs are carved into the cliff that connect the area at the Buddha's feet with the land above, allowing you to view this astonishing sight from a range of vantage points. Views are stunning over elbows and knees, taking in the river scene and Leshan's skyline. Upon arrival in Leshan, you can have lunch at a restaurant within sight the Giant Buddha. You'll then explore the Giant Buddha and enjoy fantastic views of the surrounding landscape from atop the Buddha's head. Wen then pay a visit to Lingyun Temple and Museum and get a deeper insight into the history of this amazing Buddhist site and learn the story of the carving of the Giant Buddha.

Afterwards, take the private car to Chengdu hotel/airport. End of the tour services.