Imperial China Tour

Check-in at the airport Flight to Beijing Meal served on board. Night on board (depending on your country of departure)

Breakfast served on board. Arrival in Beijing. Customs formalities and baggage retrieval. Meeting with your local guide who will drive you to your hotel while giving the first elements about the city. Free day

Your day begins on the Tiananmen Square. This square is the 4th largest square in the world and is famous for the many political events that occur here, especially changing of governments. Then you go to the Forbidden City. House of the Chinese Emperors for more than 500 years, it is a complexe palace that won't leave you indifferent. Then you discover the siheyuans, the city's traditional housing style, and the hutongs, the narrow alleys between siheyuans. You can even try a rickshaw ride to have a better view of this lovely urban landscape. Your guide introduce you to a family whose members live in the hutongs since many generations. They will explain the history of the place but also their everyday life. Back to the hotel. Free dinner and evening. [Included meals : breakfast, lunch] Optional : Show of Beijing Opera (subtitles in English and Japanese)

This morning, your guide shows you the Great Wall of China, more exactly the Badaling part, one of the most preserved area. At an altitude of 1000 meters, it was once a strategic point for traffic and defense. This part of the Great Wall is equipped with a specific path for wheelchair users that lead you up to the third lookout tower, as well as two elevators to reach the top. Then you visit a jade factory : jade is the Chinese gold. Of priceless value, jade is changed into jewelry or sculptures. After lunch, you drive the sacred road leading to the tombs of the Ming Emperors. Back to the hotel. Free dinner and evening. [Included meals : breakfast, lunch]

Morning dedicated to the visit of the Temple of Heaven, an imperial complex of religious buildings constructed from 1406 to 1420. Earth was represented by a square and Heaven by a circle; several features of the temple complex symbolize the connection of Heaven and Earth, of circle and square. And the role of Humans and Emperors in this connection. The Temple of Heaven was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1998 and was described as "a masterpiece of architecture and landscape design which simply and graphically illustrates a cosmogony of great importance for the evolution of one of the world’s great civilizations". After lunch, you take the train for Xi'an (approx. 5 hours),  the capital of Shaanxi Province. It is one of the oldest cities in China. It was known  under the name Chang'an ("eternal peace") and was the eastern end of the Silk Road. The Zhou, Qin, Han and Tang dynasties built governmental buildings in the cities. Your local guide welcomes you and drive syou to the hotel. Free time and dinner. [Included meals : breakfast, lunch]  

Morning dedicated to the main attractions of the city, including the fascinating Terracota Army. It is a collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. It is a form of funerary art buried with the emperor in 210–209 BCE with the purpose of protecting the emperor in his afterlife. The figures include warriors, chariots and horses (more than 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses, and 150 cavalry horses) but also officials, acrobats, strongmen and musicians. Visit of the ceramic factory to understand how the figures may have been manufactured. Tour of the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, located in the south of Xi'an. It was built as five-level, in 652 during the Tang Dynasty. One of the pagoda's many functions was to hold sutras and figurines of Gautama Buddha that were brought to China from India by the seventh-century Buddhist monk, scholar, traveller, and translator Xuanzang. Optional : enjoy a Jiaozi (kind of Chinese dumpling, a ground meat and/or vegetable filling wrapped into a thinly rolled piece of dough, boiled, steamed or pan-fried) before a night show on the history of the Tang Dynasty. This is a traditional Chinese evening with music and danse that evokes this particular period of progressism and prosperity.

Visit of the Museum of History of Shaanxi to discover the incredible history of the city of Xi'an. Visit of the Muslim Quarter where there are more than 10 mosques (including the Great Mosque of Xi'an), a souk, a market and restaurants. Flight from Xi'an to Chengdu. Your local guide welcomes you and drives you to your hotel. Free evening and dinner [Included meals : breakfast, lunch]

Dedicated to the conservation and rescue of the wild pandas and the breeding of pandas coming back to China from abroad. You will be able to admire those majestic animals. This is the only place where you can volunteer to appraoch the animals. And even take pictures with some of them. Visit of the ancient irrigation system. Originally constructed around 256 BC by the State of Qin as an irrigation and flood control project, it is still in use today. The system's infrastructure develops on the Min River. Originally, the Min would rush down from the Min Mountains and slow down abruptly after reaching the Chengdu Plain, filling the watercourse with silt, thus making the nearby areas extremely prone to floods. Li Bing headed the construction of the Dujiangyan, which harnessed the river using a new method of channeling and dividing the water rather than simply damming it. The water management scheme is still in use today to irrigate over 5,300 square kilometres (2,000 sq mi) of land in the region. Free evening and dinner [Included meals : breakfast, lunch]

Drive to Leshan for a boat tour around the  the Leshan Giant Buddha, the largest stone-carved buddha in the world, which was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The legend says it was due to a bouddhist monk who wanted to protect the sailormen sailing through the dangerous confluence of the three rivers. Free evening and dinner [Included meals : breakfast, lunch]

Flight to Shangai. Your local guide welcomes you and drive you to the hotel. Then wander along the Bund,a waterfront area in central Shanghai facing the modern skyscrapers of Lujiazui. You discover the somptuous buildings of banks and colonial companies from the 1930's. Free evening and dinner [Included meals : breakfast, lunch]

This day is dedicated to the visit of Shangai. In the morning, visit of the Shangai Museum, a museum of ancient Chinese art,  situated on the People's Square in the Huangpu District. Then, you discover the shikumen, a traditional Shanghainese architectural style combining Western and Chinese elements. There were 9000 shikumen-style buildings in Shanghai. Shikumen is classified as one type of lilong residences, sometimes translated as "lane houses" in English. Your next step is the Old Concession, a very typical quarter from the beginning of the 20th century. Everything was made to copy the relaxed way of life in Paris at this time. Finally, you enter the Jinmao Tower, an 88-story (93 if counting the floors in the spire) landmark skyscraper. It is 420.5 metres (1,380 feet) tall and is one of the tallest buildings in the world. What a view ! Free evening and dinner [Included meals : breakfast, lunch]

Check-in in Shangai airport. Flight back to your country