4-Day Shanghai Xian Essence Tour Explore Terracotta Warriors & Enjoy a Flexible Journey

Summary

DAY 1 Arrive in Xian: Terracotta Warriors, Big Wild Goose Pagoda
DAY 2 Xian: Xian Ancient City Wall, Bell Tower, Muslim Quarter
DAY 3 Xian--Shanghai by flight: Yu Garden, City God Temple, Nanjing Road, Shanghai World Financial Center
DAY 4 Shanghai Departure: Jade Buddha Temple, The Bund

Day 1 Arrive in Xian

Welcome to Xi'an. Your guide meets you at the airport arrivals area holding a Your Way Holiday sign, helps with your bags, and your driver takes you on to the first stop of the tour. Over the next four days you travel by private car with the same guide, and this Xi'an portion leads on to a flight to Shanghai. On the drive into the city your guide gives a short introduction to Xi'an and its history so the sights that follow have context.

Terracotta Warriors Museum

Your first stop is the Terracotta Warriors and Horses Museum, about an hour from the city, often called the eighth wonder of the world. The clay army was made for Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of a unified China, and is treated as one of the most important archaeological discoveries of the twentieth century. The site spreads over a large group of burial pits; the figures stand in formation, and each face and set of armor is cut differently. Fires damaged every one of the pits over the centuries, and parts of the army were found broken before the work of restoration you see today.

A Xi'an Lunch

At midday your guide takes you to a local restaurant for a Shaanxi lunch. Dishes to order include biang biang hand-pulled noodles, roujiamo (a crisp sesame flatbread with seasoned minced meat), and yangrou paomo, a lamb stew eaten over broken bread. The guide explains what each dish is and where it comes from, so the meal doubles as an introduction to the flavors of the region.

Big Wild Goose Pagoda

After lunch the tour continues to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, a landmark in the southern part of the old city. The pagoda was first built in the Tang dynasty to keep the sutras and Buddhist images brought back from India by the monk Xuanzang, and it is tied to the spread of Buddhism in China. You can walk the grounds around the tower, which is still used for public and ceremonial events, and your guide sets out its history and its place in the city.

When the day ends your guide takes you back to your hotel in Xi'an and helps you check in. The rest of the evening is free; if you want, your guide can point out somewhere to eat nearby. The next morning your guide collects you for a second day of Xi'an sightseeing.

Day 2 Xian

After breakfast your guide meets you in the hotel lobby, and today is given over to the heart of old Xi'an before you leave the city. The morning starts at the city wall, then the day moves through the old streets at the centre, ending with the food lanes that Xi'an is best known for.

Xi'an City Wall

Your first stop is the Xi'an City Wall, one of the oldest, largest and most completely preserved city walls in China. The ramparts that stand today were largely built during the Ming dynasty on earlier fortification lines, and they form a near-complete rectangle around the old town. You can walk the top of the wall, which takes about half a day for the full circuit, or hire a bike and ride a shorter stretch; either way it is a clear introduction to old Chinese defensive design.

A Shaanxi Lunch

At midday your guide takes you to a local restaurant for a Shaanxi lunch and helps you order from the menu, so you can try regional specialties and everyday local dishes rather than a fixed set meal.

The Bell Tower

Next is the Bell Tower, a Ming-dynasty landmark from 1368 to 1644 that once marked the time for the city, its bell rung at dawn and its drum at dusk. It stands at the crossing of the four main streets inside the old wall, and from the upper gallery you can look out along those streets toward the city gates. Inside are an old bronze bell, inscribed stone steles and painted couplets hung on the columns.

Muslim Quarter

The day ends in the Muslim Quarter, one of the most famous food streets in the city, an area with more than a thousand years of history. You walk streets paved with grey flagstones between Ming-style shopfronts, where the cooking of northwestern China is on open display. Things to try include mutton soup with flatbread, cold rice noodles, Qishan noodles and the local wheat bread filled with minced meat, and the street is especially known for its beef and mutton, with roast beef a stand-out. It is a relaxed place to eat and browse before the day closes.

When the day closes your guide drives you back to your hotel in Xi'an and helps you settle in for the night. The evening is free, and tomorrow your driver takes you to the airport for the flight to Shanghai.

Day 3 Xian-Shanghai by Flight

Early in the morning your driver collects you from the Xi'an hotel and takes you to the airport for the flight to Shanghai. On landing, a local Shanghai guide waits in the arrivals area with a Your Way Holiday sign, helps with your bags, and the city tour begins right away. Your guide and driver stay with you for the next two days in Shanghai.

Yuyuan Garden

The first stop is Yuyuan Garden, a classical Chinese garden in the old city, laid out more than 400 years ago by Pan Yunduan as a quiet retreat for his parents. Behind its walls are pavilions, halls, rockeries, ponds and covered walkways arranged close together in a small, sheltered space. Next to the gate is the Yuyuan Bazaar, a busy market of stalls selling snacks, tea and small gifts, where you can wander between the garden visit and lunch.

Shanghai City God Temple

A short walk away is the Shanghai City God Temple, a folk temple with roots going back over 600 years. It gives its name to the surrounding lanes, which mix religious ceremony with one of the oldest food streets in the city, so the area around the temple is a place of markets and cooking as much as worship. Festivals held here are tied to local custom and still draw people from across Shanghai.

Nanjing Road

In the afternoon the tour moves to Nanjing Road, one of the most famous shopping streets in Shanghai. The main stretch is East Nanjing Road, a pedestrian promenade running from People’s Square toward the Bund, closed to traffic and busy all day. Around 360 malls, department stores, specialty shops and restaurants line it, and at night the shopfronts light up with neon. It is an easy place to walk, shop and watch the city after dark.

Shanghai World Financial Center

The last stop is the Shanghai World Financial Center, one of the tall office towers rising over the Pudong skyline, designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox and developed by Mori Building. From the observation levels you look out across the Huangpu River to the old city and back over the towers of Lujiazui. The floors hold multimedia displays on how fast the city has changed, along with a large scale model that maps out Shanghai from its river ports to its newest districts.

At the end of the day your private driver takes you back to your hotel in Shanghai. The evening is free; your guide can point you to dinner or an evening river cruise, and tomorrow the tour reaches its final day.

Day 4 Shanghai Departure

In the morning your guide and driver meet you in the hotel lobby for the last day of the tour, built around two of the city's best-known sights before your departure transfer. You start at a working Buddhist temple in the old quarter, then move to the riverside promenade lined with early-twentieth-century bank and trading houses.

Jade Buddha Temple

A short drive brings you to the Yufo (Jade Buddha) Temple, one of the more active Buddhist temples in the city. Its name comes from two jade Buddha statues brought from Burma by the abbot Hui Gen: a seated figure close to 1.95 metres tall in the main hall, and a smaller reclining Buddha. The halls run from a Heavenly Kings hall through the main hall to the jade Buddha hall, with a separate hall for Guanyin, the bodhisattva of compassion. During festivals the courtyards fill with incense smoke and candlelight.

The Bund

From the temple your guide drives to the Bund, the curving waterfront where a row of bank and trading houses faces the Huangpu River. The buildings were put up largely between the 1920s and 1940s in a mix of Gothic, Baroque, Romanesque, Neoclassical and Art Deco styles, and the stretch is often called a gallery of architecture for that reason. Your guide walks you along the promenade with time for photographs. At night, when the stone facades are floodlit, the same bank of buildings faces the glass towers of Pudong on the opposite bank.

After the Bund your guide helps you back to the car for lunch at a local restaurant, and in the afternoon your driver takes you to Shanghai's airport. Your guide assists with check-in and is on hand for any last questions before you fly out, closing a four-day trip that runs from the ancient sites around Xi'an to the waterfront of Shanghai.

Price Per Person in US Dollars