Nine days links China’s three great chapters: imperial Beijing and its Wall, Xi’an, the 2,200-year-old capital guarding the Terracotta Army, and Shanghai, where the country’s future gets prototyped, all stitched together by 300 km/h trains. See the full itinerary.
From the same hand-researched library as our China itinerary. Last reviewed 2026-07-29.
Beijing
Beijing has been the seat of the Middle Kingdom for most of seven centuries, and it does imperial scale like nowhere else, the world’s largest palace, its most famous wall, and hutong lanes where the old city still plays chess outside. Book everything ahead: the big sights run on real-name timed tickets.
1
Forbidden City
980 buildings and 24 emperors behind ten-meter walls. Real-name tickets (passport required) are released seven days ahead at 8 PM Beijing time and sell out fast; closed Mondays. Enter at the Meridian Gate and exit north.
Beijing
2
Great Wall at Mutianyu
A restored Ming stretch 70 km northeast, its crenellated towers riding forested ridges, cable car up, toboggan down, and far thinner crowds than Badaling. Leave at nine and you are back in the city by early afternoon.
Beijing
3
Temple of Heaven
The triple-roofed Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, built without a single nail, where emperors bargained with heaven for the rice crop. Come early for the park’s tai chi and ribbon dancers.
Beijing
4
Summer Palace
The Qing court’s lakeside retreat, the 728-meter painted Long Corridor, Kunming Lake full of dragon boats, and Empress Dowager Cixi’s marble boat folly.
Beijing
Xi’an
Xi’an, ancient Chang’an, was capital to 13 dynasties and the eastern end of the Silk Road; a millennium before Beijing mattered. This was the largest city on earth. It packs the Terracotta Army, an intact Ming wall, and China’s best street food into two days.
5
Xi’an City Wall
The most complete city wall in China, a 14-kilometer Ming rectangle, 12 meters high and wide enough to cycle. Rent a bicycle on top at the South Gate and ride the full loop in two unhurried hours; late-afternoon light is best.
Xi’an
6
Terracotta Army
Emperor Qin Shi Huang’s 8,000-strong buried garrison, every face different, guarding his tomb since 210 BC, about an hour east of the city. Book the official timed ticket, go out in the morning, and see Pits 2 and 3 before the crowds pack Pit 1.
Xi’an
7
Giant Wild Goose Pagoda
The 7th-century brick tower built to hold the sutras the monk Xuanzang carried back from India, the journey that became one of Chinese literature’s founding legends.
Xi’an
Shanghai
Shanghai is China at full velocity, a fishing town that became the Paris of the East in the 1920s and the country’s financial engine today. The colonial Bund faces the Pudong skyline across the river: one city, two centuries, one photograph.
8
The Bund
The colonial banking front, 52 stone facades, most raised in the 1920s and 30s, facing Pudong’s towers across the Huangpu. Walk it twice: once by day, once after dark when both skylines switch on.
Shanghai
9
Yu Garden and the Old Town
A Ming official’s classical garden of rockeries, carp ponds, and zigzag bridges, wrapped in the old town’s temple bazaar. Be at the gate at opening; by mid-morning the lanes are shoulder to shoulder.
Shanghai
10
Shanghai Tower observation deck
China’s tallest building and the world’s third-tallest at 632 meters, with an observatory on the 118th floor reached by some of the fastest elevators ever built. Go on a clear day, obviously.
Shanghai
Museums, parks, and neighborhoods are on the full China itinerary, sequenced into a realistic day-by-day plan with transport between cities.
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