From North of China to South of the Clouds

Day01 Arrival in Beijing

Airport pick-up & airport-hotel transfer.

Day02 Beijing

Tiananmen Square：”Gate of Heavenly Peace” , a gate in the wall of the Imperial City, was built in 1415 during the Ming dynasty.
Forbidden City：The former seat of Imperial Chinese Dragon Throne from the Ming dynasty to the end of the Qing dynasty.
A la carte lunch
Temple of Heaven: The Temple of Heaven was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1998. The complex was visited by the Emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties for annual ceremonies of prayer to Heaven for good harvest.
Kung Fu Show.

Day03 Beijing

Badaling Great Wall：the site of the most visited section of the Great Wall of China, approximately 80 kilometres (50 mi) northwest of urban Beijing city in Yanqing District.
Sacred Way：A collection of mausoleums built by the emperors of the Ming dynasty of China.
Bird’s Nest (drive by)：officially the National Stadium, was jointly designed by architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron of Herzog & de Meuron, project architect Stefan Marbach, artist Ai Weiwei, and CADG which was led by chief architect Li Xinggang.

Day04 Beijing – Xian

Summer Palace： a vast ensemble of lakes, gardens and palaces in Beijing.
A la carte lunch.
Hutong visit:  a type of narrow streets or alleys, commonly associated with northern Chinese cities.
Fly to Xian. Airport-hotel transfer.

Day05 Xian

Terracotta Warriors:  Funerary art buried with the emperor in 210–209 BCE and whose purpose was to protect the emperor in his afterlife.A local family visit, Home-cooked lunch.
Xian Museum and Small Wild Goose Pagoda: During the Tang Dynasty, the Small Wild Goose Pagoda stood across a street from its mother temple, the Dajianfu Temple. Pilgrims brought sacred Buddhist writings to the temple and pagoda from India, as the temple was one of the main centers in Chang’an for translating Buddhist texts.
Tang Dynasty Show with dumpling dinner: performing ancient life in Tang dynasty by singing and dancing.

Day06 Xian

City Wall: It exhibits the “complete features of the rampart architecture of feudal society”. It is situated at the end of the ancient Silk Road.

Provincial History Museum: one of the first huge state museums with modern facilities in China and one of the largest.

A la carte lunch.
Great Mosque, Free time at the Muslim Bazzar: The largest mosque in China. An active place of worship within Xi’an Muslim Quarter, this courtyard complex is also a popular tourist site.

Day07 Xian – Guilin

Fly to Guilin. Airport-hotel transfer.
Reed Flute Cave: The cave got its name from the type of reed growing outside, which can be made into flutes.

Day08 Guilin – Yangshuo – Guilin

Li River cruise to Yangshuo, Countryside trip:
With regard to China’s scenic beauty, there are two popular Chinese sayings known to many: “In heaven is paradise, on earth are Suzhou and Hangzhou.” “Guilin’s mountains and waters rank first in China and Yangshuo’s are the best in Guilin”

Yangshuo-Guilin transfer.
Elephant Trunk Hill:  it looks like an elephant drinking water.

Day09 Guilin – Kunming

Free time in the morning. Fly to Kunming. Airport-hotel transfer.

Day10 Kunming – Lijiang

Stone Forest and a tea house： A notable set of limestone formations, the tall rocks seem to arise from the ground in a manner somewhat reminiscent of stalagmites, or with many looking like petrified trees, thereby creating the illusion of a forest made of stone.
Fly to Lijiang. Airport-hotel transfer.

Day11 Lijiang

Baisha Village：Baisha Ancient Town is one of the oldest zones in the city of Lijiang. It got its name of “Baisha,” meaning “white sand,” from the typical natural white sand in the area. Baisha was the cradle of the Tusi Dynasty which evolved from the Mu clan, and was also the earliest settlement of the Naxi people.
a local Naxi family:  Ethnic group inhabiting the foothills of the Himalayas in the northwestern part of YunnanProvince
Baisha Murals: The 44 pieces of Murals  here were carved in the early Ming Dynasty. Most of the paintings depict religious stories from Taoism, Buddhism, and Tibetan Buddhism.
Old Town of Shuhe: A small ancient town under mountain Yulong.
Tea-Horse Road Musuem: In the spirit and essence of the old caravanserais that served the leaders of the pack-trains carrying tea from the Burmese border to the high plateau of Tibet, Tea Horse Road is a series of properties located in some of the world’s most majestic settings.
Lijiang Old Town: The town has a history going back more than 1,000 years and was once a confluence for trade along the “Old Tea Horse Caravan Trail”. The Dayan Old town is famous for its orderly system of waterways and bridges, a system fast becoming but a memory as the underground water table drops, probably due to over-building in the suburban areas.

Day12 Departure from Lijiang

Hotel-airport transfer is on your own arrangement. A pleasant onward trip!

Note: This Tour can be extended to Dali and Shangri-La