7-Day Splendid Central Plains Tour: Xi'an & Luoyang

Morning — Arrival at Xi'an Xianyang International Airport
Your guide and driver meet you in the arrivals hall with a name sign and take you by private vehicle to your hotel in the city centre. The early arrival means the whole day is still ahead of you, but a long-haul flight deserves some rest first.

Afternoon — Check-in and Rest
Settle into your 4- or 5-star hotel and recover from the journey. Your guide confirms the programme for the coming days and is on hand for anything you need.

Evening — The Muslim Quarter
Dinner is in the Muslim Quarter, a grid of lanes where Hui families have sold food since the Tang dynasty: hand-pulled biangbiang noodles, cumin lamb skewers, roujiamo and sweet persimmon cakes. Afterwards walk to the Bell and Drum Tower square, where the two Ming towers are floodlit against the modern city.

Meals
Breakfast, Dinner included.

Morning — The Terracotta Warriors and Horses Museum
Marvel at the terracotta army in Lintong: thousands of clay soldiers standing guard where they were placed two millennia ago, Pit 2's formations revealing the tactical thinking behind them. Afterwards visit Huaqing Palace at the foot of Mount Li, the garden of Emperor Xuanzong and Yang Guifei's romance.

Afternoon — Return to the City
Drive back to Xi'an and freshen up before the evening.

Evening — Tang Paradise
As night falls, enter Tang Paradise, a vast lakeside reconstruction of the imperial gardens of the Tang. Pavilions, bridges and the Ziyun Lou palace building are outlined in light, and costumed performers bring the poetry of the dynasty into the present.

Meals
Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner included.

Morning — The Xi'an Museum
Explore the Xi'an Museum's 110,000 objects, which trace thirteen dynasties, then walk the grounds of the Small Wild Goose Pagoda — a Tang structure that has 'walked' through three major earthquakes without falling.

Afternoon — High-speed Rail to Luoyang
Board the high-speed train east. In an hour and a half the Guanzhong plain gives way to the Central Plains, with mountains rising purple on the horizon: you have entered the heartland of Chinese civilisation.

Evening — The Luoyang Water Banquet
Arrive in Luoyang and sit down to the Water Banquet: twenty-four courses served in sequence, each one broth-based. It is the oldest documented banquet tradition in China and it is extraordinary.

Meals
Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner included.

Morning — The Longmen Grottoes
Walk the cliffside galleries of Longmen, where more than 100,000 Buddhist statues crowd the limestone above the Yi river. The largest figure is monumental, the smallest the size of a fingernail, and the whole cliff was carved over several centuries.

Afternoon — The White Horse Temple
Journey to the White Horse Temple, founded in AD 68 under Emperor Ming and regarded as the source of Buddhism in China. Its halls and pagodas sit among old cypresses and incense.

Evening — Luoyi Ancient City
Explore Luoyang by night: the lantern-lit streets of Luoyi Ancient City and the night market for local snacks and crafts.

Meals
Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner included.

Morning — Shaolin Temple
Shaolin Temple, in the Songshan Mountains, is famed both as a pivotal center of Chinese Buddhism and as the birthplace of Shaolin kung fu. Tradition holds that in the early 7th century a band of 13 Shaolin monks helped save the future Tang emperor Li Shimin, after which the temple flourished as a hub of martial arts — at its height housing over 3,000 soldier-monks. You can visit the main halls and the Tallinn (forest of stupas) where eminent monks are laid to rest, and watch a martial-arts performance by the temple's students.

Afternoon — Songyang Academy & Kung Fu Experience
Continue to Songyang Academy, one of China's most venerable classical academies with a history stretching back over a thousand years. If interested, you can try basic Shaolin martial arts under the guidance of temple instructors — a hands-on way to appreciate this living tradition.

Evening — High-Speed Train to Xi'an
At dusk, continue your journey to Xi'an by high-speed railway. On arrival, your personal guide will meet you and transfer you to your hotel for a good night's rest.

Morning — The Forest of Stone Steles
Visit the Forest of Stone Steles, where more than three thousand inscribed tablets span two thousand years of Chinese literature, religion and art — a library cut into rock.

Afternoon — The Giant Wild Goose Pagoda
Climb the seven-storey Giant Wild Goose Pagoda, built in 652 to hold the scriptures Xuanzang brought from India, for views across the city.

Evening — Farewell Dinner and Qinqiang Opera
A farewell banquet of Xi'an's finest cooking, then Qinqiang opera at Yisu She, the oldest opera house in the city, where the singing is loud enough to be heard over any orchestra.

Meals
Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner included.

Morning — At Leisure
A relaxed morning for final shopping or a last walk in the old city. Your guide can suggest where to find calligraphy, jade, terracotta replicas and Shaanxi speciality foods.

Afternoon — Transfer to the Airport
Your private vehicle collects you from the hotel and takes you to Xi'an Xianyang International Airport.

Evening — Departure
Board your onward flight, carrying the taste of Guanzhong and the memory of an underground army that waited two thousand years to be found.

Meals
Breakfast included.