*The land of Nine Dragons

B: breakfast   L:lunch    D: dinner

Day 1 Beijing D
Arrive in Beijing for a three-night stay at the 5*Capital Hotel. Welcome dinner.

Day 2 Beijing B / L/ D
Visit Tiananmen Square, then enter the Forbidden City, the great palace that housed 24 successive emperors and their thousands of courtiers, eunuchs, concubines and slaves. Continue to Jingshan Park, the imperial gardens, for panoramic views and visit the magnificent red and gold Temple of Heaven that was built for the Emperor, the son of Heaven, to make sacrifices for a good harvest. Spectacular Kung Fu show tonight.

Day 3 Beijing B/ L/ D
Drive out to one of the best-preserved and most dramatic sections of the Great Wall of China at Mutianyu, and walk along the crenellated parapets that have snaked across the rugged mountain landscape for centuries. Peking Duck dinner tonight, an imperial favourite.

Day 4 Xian B/ L/ D
Visit the imperial Summer Palace where you can wander through the formal gardens that were laid out by the extravagant Empress Cixi, before flying to Xian, the eastern terminus of the Silk Road and China’s first capital. Stay two nights at the 4* Grand New World Hotel.

Day 5 Xian B/ L/ D
7,000 terracotta soldiers have stood guard over China’s first emperor for over 2,200 years, and now, painstakingly repaired along with their chariots and horses, they still stand in battle formation in giant exhibition halls erected around the pits where they were discovered in the 1970s. In the city visit the muslim quarter surrounding the imposing Great Mosque, and tonight enjoy a Tang dynasty music and dance show.

Day 6 Chengdu B/ L/ D
Visit Xian’s Provincial Museum this morning, and uniquely for China Holidays’guests, the curators will let you touch some of the exhibits. After lunch, fly to Chengdu for an overnight stay at the 4* Minshan Lhasa Hotel and visit the Giant Panda Research Base before attending a performance of the local Sichuan ‘facechanging’ opera – a vivid and colourful  pectacle of dance and music. See if you can spot how the actors swap their masks so quickly!

Day 7 Dazu, Yangtze Cruise B/ L/ D
A scenic drive through rural Sichuan to Dazu, UNESCO World Heritage Site and home to many caves and grottoes in which are thousands of Buddha statues, most dating from between the 9th and the 13th centuries, the Tang and Song dynasties. Continue to Chongqing to board the 5*Century Sun for an unforgettable three-night cruise down the Yangtze. Unpack in your spacious cabin and relax in luxury on your private balcony as the ship sets sail tonight.

Day 8 Yangtze Cruise B/ L/ D
Relax and savour the extraordinary natural landscapes of the Yangtze’s Three Gorges, and enjoy a shore excursion to visit Snowy Jade Cave where stalagmites and stalagtites as white as marble have created a fairytale grotto.

Day 9 Yangtze Cruise B/ L/ D
Cruise through Qutang Gorge, the shortest and narrowest of the Three Gorges, and onwards beneath the forbidding, misty cliffs of Wu (the Witches’) Gorge. There is an optional shore visit to the temple of White Emperor City, where it is believed white vapour in the shape of a dragon was seen rising from a nearby well, and another exploring one of the Yangtze’s tributaries on an included scenic excursion by small boat along the picturesque Shennong Stream. Rejoin your ship to sail through what was once the most dangerous section of the river, Xiling Gorge, and progress through the five enormous ship locks that are part of the transformation of the Yangtze in recent years.

Day 10 Yangtze Cruise, Shanghai B/ L/ D
See the Three Gorges Dam, the largest and most notorious hydroelectric power station in the world. Disembark at Yichang, and fly to Shanghai for three nights at the 4* Lansheng Hotel.

Day 11 Shanghai B/ L/ D
Stroll through the 400-year-old Yuyuan Garden, with its elegantly landscaped ponds and pavilions, rockeries and statues, and visit Jade Buddha Temple whose two jade statues were carried all the way from Burma by Chinese monks on their backs. Continue to the superb Shanghai Museum that displays centuries of Chinese civilisation–precious ceramics, bronzes, rare jade sculptures, exquisite calligraphy, traditional folk costumes and furniture. Enthralling acrobatic show tonight.

Day 12 Suzhou B/ L/ D
Drive to Suzhou, one of the region’s beautiful ‘water towns’ and famed for its classical Mingera gardens. Visit the Humble Administrator’s Garden, and the 800-year-old Panmen City Gate, the only land and water gate left in the world. Later inspect some of the region’s fine needlework at the Silk Embroidery Institute before returning to Shanghai.

Day 13 Shanghai B
See off at Shanghai Airport.