8-Day Bronze Civilization Tour: Xi'an, Louguantai, Baoji & Famen

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 — Drive to Louguantai
Depart early for Louguantai, a sacred Daoist site in a wooded valley along the Wei river. Tradition holds that Laozi — the author of the Daodejing — passed through here and taught before riding west.

Afternoon — The Temple Complex
Explore the complex: ancient cypresses said to be more than two thousand years old, the hall where Laozi is said to have taught, and the Peach Blossom Spring garden, laid out to recreate the utopia of the classical poem.

Evening — A Quiet Night
Return to Xi'an and enjoy a leisurely evening.

Meals
Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner included.

Morning — The Road to Baoji
Drive west along the Wei River valley, roughly two and a half hours, into the heartland where the Zhou dynasty established China's longest-lasting ritual order. Every major bronze hoard of the twentieth century seemed to surface in these fields.

Afternoon — The Bronze Ware Museum
Enter the Baoji Bronze Ware Museum, one of China's finest, its galleries shaped like bronze ding tripods on the platform above the river. The He Zun — with the earliest known written appearance of the word China — anchors the collection; the walls of inscribed vessels show how the Zhou wrote their claims to rule.

Evening — Return to Xi'an
Drive back east along the valley to Xi'an. Dinner on arrival, and a quiet evening.

Meals
Breakfast, Lunch included.

Morning — Fengxiang Clay Figurine Village
Drive to Fengxiang, a small city known for living folk arts. In the clay figurine village, master craftspeople have sculpted and hand-painted the famous 'sitting tiger' for generations — bold, protective, and meant to be given to children.

Afternoon — The Duke Jing of Qin Tomb Museum
Continue to the Duke Jing of Qin Tomb Museum, one of the most significant archaeological sites in China. Duke Jing ruled in the sixth century BC and built Qin into the military power that would eventually swallow the other states.

Evening — Back in the Ancient Capital
Return to Xi'an and relax over a quiet dinner, reflecting on the day.

Meals
Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner included.

Morning — Famen Temple
Journey west to Famen Temple, founded in the third century and one of the four most sacred Buddhist monasteries in China. In 874, during a persecution of Buddhism, a monk sealed the relic away rather than let it be destroyed.

Afternoon — The Underground Palace
Descend into the underground palace. A five-tiered gold and silver pagoda encrusted with gemstones holds the bone relic in nested caskets — gold inside silver inside gold — along with Tang silver, glass and silk of the highest order.

Evening — Return to Xi'an
Drive back to Xi'an and dine quietly at the hotel or in the old town.

Meals
Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner included.

Morning — Qianling Mausoleum
Travel to Qianling, the grandest joint tomb in Chinese history: Emperor Gaozong of Tang and Wu Zetian, the only woman to rule China as emperor. The tomb chamber has never been opened.

Afternoon — Maoling and 'Horse Trampling the Xiongnu'
Visit the Maoling mausoleum of Emperor Wu of Han and the stone sculpture of Huo Qubing's 'Horse Trampling the Xiongnu', carved from a single boulder in 113 BC and one of the founding works of Chinese monumental sculpture.

Evening — Farewell Dinner and Qinqiang
A farewell banquet celebrating the flavours of Shaanxi, then Qinqiang opera at the historic Yisu She theatre.

Meals
Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner included.

Morning — The Forest of Stone Steles
Visit the Forest of Stone Steles, where more than three thousand inscribed tablets span two millennia — Confucian classics, Buddhist sutras, maps and the hand of every major calligrapher.

Afternoon — Final Shopping and Transfer
Free time for last shopping: the antique market for terracotta replicas, jade and calligraphy scrolls. Then your private transfer to Xi'an Xianyang International Airport.

Evening — Departure
Board your flight home.

Meals
Breakfast included.