Well- selected China Train Tour with Shanghai Xi’an

Welcome to Shanghai! Shanghai is a beautiful modern metropolis with many historical sites. You will arrive at Shanghai Pudong International Airport or Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport. After your arrival, your tour guide will transfer you to the hotel. On the way to the hotel, the guide will tell you some interesting stories and useful travel information about Shanghai. Then you will check in at the hotel. We believe you will have fun in Shanghai.

After breakfast, your 8-day trip in China will start from Yu Garden (closed each Monday). “Yu” means safety and health in Chinese. Yu Garden was originally a private garden in the Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644) with a history of more than 450 years. It is a well-known Southern China classical garden and a famous historical site for tourists from all over the world. Here, you can not only appreciate the traditional Chinese garden architecture style but also enjoy the beautiful lake scenery.

After visiting Yu Garden, you will arrive at the Old Street. The Old Street is a multi-functional characteristic street integrating tourism, shopping, leisure and entertainment, and cultural display. The Old Street is 825 meters long. The architectural style and the business layout from west to east show the historical and cultural evolution of Shanghai. The commercial operation of the whole street takes traditional characteristic industries as the mainstream, highlighting the traditional folk culture and creating a Shanghai-style cultural atmosphere. Walking into Shanghai Old Street, you seem to have returned to the bustling market of Shanghai 100 years ago.

And then your guide will take you to a nearby restaurant for lunch. After lunch, you will visit Shanghai Tower, a super high-rise landmark building located at Lujiazui, Pudong. With a total height of 632 meters, it is currently the tallest skyscraper in China and the second tallest in the world. The appearance of Shanghai Tower is spiraling, symbolizing the pattern of the traditional Chinese dragon. There are 121 floors in total in the tower, and it is vertically divided into function areas including the business center on the ground floor, the office floors in the middle section, and the hotel, cultural facilities, and the viewing platform in the upper section. Here, you can enjoy the panoramic scenery of Shanghai.

Then you will visit the Bund. The Bund, with a total length of 1.5 kilometers, is located on the bank of the Huangpu River in Huangpu District, Shanghai. Known as the Bund World Architecture Exhibition Group, the Bund area owns 52 classical buildings with different styles such as the Bank of China Building, Peace Hotel, and Customs Building, becoming an important and representative historical site in modern China and one of the landmarks of Shanghai. When night comes, you can take a river cruise or ferry on the Huangpu River to appreciate the beauty of this bustling city from another angle.

Then you will come to Nanjing Road, one of the top ten commercial centers in Shanghai. Nanjing Road is 5.5 kilometers long. It is the most famous commercial street in Shanghai and one of the most famous tourist attractions. Nanjing Road consists of Nanjing East Road and Nanjing West Road. The former is mainly a common commercial area and tourist area while Nanjing West Road is a fashionable commercial district focusing on luxury goods and products for high-end individual consumption. Visitors who come here on weekends for shopping, tasting food, and traveling come in an endless stream. Especially in the evening, when various neon lights are turned on, the distinctive buildings are even more beautiful, attracting a large number of tourists.

Yu Garden

Nanjing Road

After breakfast today, your trip will start from Tianzifang which was rebuilt from the unique Shikumen-style complexes in Shanghai and is a creative work base for many literati and artists. There are various retro shops, trendy clothing shops, and many restaurants with creative cuisine waiting for you to explore. You can also find a street artist to paint a portrait of yourself. Of course, if you are into literary and artistic things, you can also spend some time visiting several cultural celebrity art studios like the most well-known site of Chen Yifei’s studio, which still contains the objects he used in the past years. In addition, there are several well-known cultural and artistic attractions such as Ren Weiyin Gallery, Basel Art Center, and Tianzifang Painter Building. You can visit them one by one and bring your camera to record all the good memories here. If you are tired, you can sit down in a cafe, enjoy the cool breeze in the old traditional lanes, have a taste of the delicious afternoon tea, and feel the unique style of old Shanghai.

After lunch, we will continue to visit Shanghai Museum (closed each Monday). The museum was founded in 1952 and covers an area of 11,000 square meters. There are 3 main exhibition halls and 11 special exhibition halls in Shanghai Museum with a display area of 2,800 square meters. The collection, exhibition, and research of Shanghai Museum focus on ancient Chinese art. There are nearly one million cultural relics in the collection, including bronzeware, ceramics, calligraphy works, and paintings, making it a large-scale museum of ancient Chinese art. In May 2020, Shanghai Museum won the Excellent Award in the top ten exhibitions of national museums in 2019.

After visiting Shanghai Museum, you will come to Jade Buddha Temple. Jade Buddha Temple is a pure land in the busy city. This temple was built in 1882 and is a famous temple in Shanghai. The current Jade Buddha Temple is divided into two parts: the front yard and the back yard. There is a cultural relics room in the temple, which contains precious cultural relics existing from the Northern Wei Dynasty (386 - 534) to the Qing Dynasty (1636 - 1912). The temple is most famous for the two jade Buddha statues from Myanmar. One of the statues is collected in the Jade Buddha Hall and honored as the treasure of the town and temple. The gold leaf and inlaid gems on the Buddha’s body are dazzling. Moreover, there are 500 golden Buddha statues on the ceiling of the Jade Buddha Building. The other statue is in the Reclining Buddha Hall on the west side of the temple. It is a 96-centimeter-long reclining buddha statue of Shakyamuni, which was created according to the appearance when he passed away at 80 years old. In addition, it is worth seeing the stone carvings on the walls of the east and west corridors, and the outer walls on both sides of the Main Hall. Many visitors come here to pray, especially on the first and fifteenth day of the Lunar New Year. You can also make a wish here, and we believe it will come true!

Shanghai Museum

Tianzifang

The fourth day of travel will start from Zhujiajiao Town, which is located in Qingpu District. It is a typical Southern China water town with a very elegant environment. It is the first choice for those who want to visit ancient towns around Shanghai. After entering the ancient town from the entrance on the south side, you will first come to Zhuxi Garden and the Humanities Art Museum. Then you will come to North Street where you can taste many traditional snacks. Slowly strolling north along North Street, you will see a few unique and different bridges on your right.

In the afternoon, we will arrive at the Former French Concession. It was the most advanced residential area in old Shanghai. Owning to the fact that the architectural style is uniform and almost the same as that of Paris, Shanghai is also called the Paris of the East. In addition, you can also see many French platanus. The reason why they are called French platanus is that they were first introduced into China by the French and planted in the French Concession of Shanghai. You can visit many modern historical sites such as the Former Residence of Sun Yat-sen.

Zhujiajiao Town

Former French Concession

This morning, you will say goodbye to Shanghai and head to Xi’an. You will take the estimated train G1920 09:24/16:22 to Xi’an. After arrival in Xi’an, your guide in Xi’an will pick you up at the railway station and transfer you to the hotel.

After breakfast, we will drive for about 40 kilometers (1 hour) to the northwest to visit the Terra Cotta Warriors and Horses Museum, which is known as the eighth wonder of the world. The more than 1,000 pottery figurines of soldiers unearthed have different gestures and vivid expressions. They are a shining pearl in the history of ancient Chinese sculpture art and are known as “one of the great discoveries in the history of archaeology in the 20th century.” There are three pits in the Terracotta Warriors and Horses Museum. The No. 1 Pit is the largest one, in which there are clay warriors and horses, as well as a large number of bronze weapons. The attire, looks, and hairstyles of the terracotta warriors are different but lifelike, which also reflects their different identities and craftsmen’s superb skills. The clay figurines and horses were originally painted, but due to subsequent fire and soaking, the color faded.

After lunch, you will visit Xi’an City Wall, which is an iconic landscape of ancient capital Xi’an city and one of the most complete ancient circumvallation in China. The total length of the city wall is about 14 kilometers, the height is 12 meters, the width at the top is 12 to 14 meters, the bottom width is 15-18 meters, and the outline is a closed rectangle. There are four main gates including Changle Gate, Yongning Gate, Anding Gate, and Anyuan Gate, which are also the original gates of the circumvallation. Xi’an City Wall is the first batch of key historical and cultural sites protected at the national level and a national AAAAA-level tourist attraction in China.

Muslim Street will be our next destination. As a Muslim area with a history of hundreds of years, you can feel a strong Muslim atmosphere here. There are about 20,000 Muslims living in the neighborhood, maintaining the original religious traditions and living habits. In addition, you can eat almost all Xi’an snacks in Muslim Street, including all kinds of kebabs, pita bread soaked in lamb soup, soup dumplings, spicy lamb’s feet, and cold noodles. You can also buy some local-style pastries, dried fruits, candied fruits, and other snacks as souvenirs to give to your friends and family members.

Terracotta Warriors and Horses Museum

Xi’an City Wall

In the morning, we will visit the Great Mosque. It is a large-scale Chinese and Islamic ancient building complex with a long history, integrating the Islamic culture and Chinese culture. According to historical records engraved on a stone tablet inside, the Great Mosque was built in 742, with a construction area of about 6,000 square meters. There are four courtyards in the whole temple where you can see pavilions and decorated buildings. It is promoted to the third batch of key historical and cultural sites protected at the national level and listed as one of the world’s Islamic cultural relics by UNESCO.

After lunch, you will visit the Shaanxi History Museum. The Shaanxi History Museum is a large modern museum. The museum covers an area of 65,000 square meters and houses more than 380,000 cultural relics which are not only large in number and complete in types but also high in value. The Shaanxi History Museum is an art palace that showcases the history and culture of Shaanxi and ancient Chinese civilization. There are three exhibition halls in the center of the museum. The first exhibition hall displays cultural relics from the Lantian ape-man period(prehistoric civilization 1.15 million years ago) to the Qin Dynasty (221 – 207); the second exhibition hall displays cultural relics from the Han Dynasty (202 – 220) and the Wei, Jin, and Southern and Northern Dynasties (220 - 280); the third hall displays cultural relics from the prosperous Tang Dynasty (618 - 907).

Finally, we will visit the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, which is a brick tower used to enshrine Buddha statues, relics, and scriptures brought back from India. The Big Wild Goose Pagoda was built by Monk Master Xuanzang. After generational reconstruction and repair, it has gradually evolved into a pavilion-like tower with a brick and wood structure with the characteristics of architecture in the Central Plains in China. The reconstruction vividly embodies the process of the introduction of ancient Indian Buddhist architectural art into China. The palm-leaf scriptures in the Big Wild Goose Pagoda are also precious Buddhist relics.

Great Mosque

Big Wild Goose Pagoda

Today, we will take you to the airport after breakfast according to your flight and you will fly back to your sweet home. We are looking forward to serving you again in the other cities of China.