7-Day Sword of Huashan: Xi'an, Mount Hua & Yuncheng

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
Drive east to Lintong and stand at the edge of Pit 1, where more than six thousand life-sized soldiers face east in battle formation. Each face is different; the bronze weapons were still sharp when they came out of the ground. Your guide walks you through Pits 1, 2 and 3 and the Bronze Chariot hall, and explains how a workforce of artisans produced an army on an industrial scale in the third century BC.

Afternoon — Huaqing Palace
Continue to Huaqing Palace at the foot of Mount Li, where Emperor Xuanzong built thermal baths and pavilions for his consort Yang Guifei. The same courtyards later became the setting for the 1936 Xi'an Incident, so the site carries both the most famous love story and one of the decisive political moments of modern China.

Evening — The Grand Tang Mall
After dark, walk the Grand Tang Mall, a 2.1-kilometre pedestrian avenue of Tang-style architecture, light installations and street performance that recreates the night market of Chang'an at the height of the dynasty.

Meals
Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner included.

Morning — The Road to Mount Hua
Board the coach for the 120-kilometre drive east, watching the sacred mountain's granite silhouette rise out of the plain.

Afternoon — The West Peak
Ascend the West Peak by cable car — a twenty-minute ride through cloud and up vertical granite. From the summit at 2,086 metres, walk the ridge paths; the plank walks on the South Peak are a separate, more exposed choice and are not attempted in wet or icy conditions.

Evening — At the Foot of the Mountain
Descend by cable car and settle into your hotel at the foot of Mount Hua, ready to continue east in the morning.

Meals
Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner included.

Morning — Xiezhou Guandi Temple
Drive about two hours east across the provincial border into Shanxi, to Yuncheng, city of China's most revered general. Visit the Xiezhou Guandi Temple, the largest of all temples to Guan Yu — a complex of halls, arches and ancient cypress that has been rebuilt by successive dynasties.

Afternoon — Changping Guandi Ancestral Temple
Continue to the Changping Guandi Ancestral Temple, believed to stand near Guan Yu's actual birthplace and family home. Among ancient cypresses and stone carvings you meet the human story behind the god.

Evening — In Yuncheng
Check into your hotel in central Yuncheng, a crossroads of commerce and culture for twenty centuries, and dine locally.

Meals
Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner included.

Morning — Stork Tower
Visit Stork Tower, one of China's four great towers, made immortal by the Tang poet Wang Zhihuan in lines every Chinese schoolchild can recite: the sun beyond the mountain glows, the Yellow River seawards flows.

Afternoon — The Dikengyuan
Drive about 1.5 hours south to Sanmenxia and descend into the extraordinary world of the dikengyuan, courtyard homes unique to the Loess Plateau. Literally carved down into thick yellow earth, these sunken courtyards are warm in winter, cool in summer, and invisible until you are standing on the edge of one.

Evening — On the River
Overnight in Sanmenxia or nearby Lingbao, where the Yellow River carves dramatic gorges.

Meals
Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner included.

Morning — Hangu Pass
Visit Hangu Pass, one of the most strategically important fortifications of ancient China and the legendary place where Laozi, founder of Daoism, is said to have been asked by the gatekeeper to write down his teaching before riding west on his blue ox.

Afternoon — The Return Journey
Begin the return to Xi'an, about 2.5 hours northwest through landscapes that inspired centuries of poetry. Check back into your Xi'an hotel.

Evening — Farewell Dinner
A farewell dinner of regional specialities, at which your guide recaps the journey and shares ideas for future travel in China.

Meals
Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner included.

Morning — The Wall at Its Best Hour
Walk the last stretch of the city wall in the morning light, when the bricks glow and the moat reflects the gate towers. Fourteen kilometres of rampart enclose the old city; even one gate to the next is enough to say goodbye properly.

Afternoon — Shopping and Packing
Free time for souvenirs and a final bowl of noodles. Your guide remains on call for anything arranged at short notice.

Evening — Departure
Your private vehicle transfers you to Xi'an Xianyang International Airport for your onward flight.

Meals
Breakfast included.