Amazing China

Tour Highlights

• Five cities over ten days: Beijing's imperial centre, Suzhou's classical gardens, lakeside Wuxi, Hangzhou's tea country and Shanghai's riverfront
• Tiananmen Square, the vast paved centre of the capital and one of the biggest public spaces anywhere
• The Forbidden City, which UNESCO lists as World Heritage, or the Temple of Heaven if palace tickets for the day are gone
• Walking a stretch of the Great Wall at Juyong Pass, on ramparts that follow the ridgelines as far as you can see
• Peking Duck at lunch, the roast Beijing has built a reputation around, with a vegetarian option if you prefer
• A boat ride on West Lake, past willow trees at the water's edge and small misty islands
• Lihu Park, a quiet patch of lakeshore in Wuxi where the pace slows right down
• Shanghai History Museum lays out how the city grew from its early days into the metropolis outside

Itinerary at a Glance

1. Day 1: Departure day: flying out to Beijing — A long-haul flight west to Beijing opens the trip. Someone from our local team will be waiting in the arrivals hall and will take you to your hotel.
2. Day 2: Tiananmen Square, then the Forbidden City (Temple of Heaven as the alternative) — These two sites sit a few minutes apart in the middle of the capital, and the day covers both. Tiananmen Square comes first, and its scale takes some getting used to: paving big enough to hold a city'
3. Day 3: The Great Wall at Juyong Pass — Three parts of Beijing fill today, and the first is stone. At a museum given over to jade you will hear why the material has been treasured here for so long and watch carvers coax a shape out of a rou
4. Day 4: Beijing to Suzhou, by way of Shanghai — The morning starts with the gentler end of Chinese medicine, at a health centre where the practitioner explains how acupuncture and herbal prescriptions are used to keep the body in balance. The airpo
5. Day 5: Suzhou's gardens and canals, then on to Wuxi — Suzhou has been a city since 514 BC, and water made it: canals rather than streets set the pattern, which is how it earned the nickname Venice of the East. The Lingering Garden is the centrepiece of t
6. Day 6: Wuxi to Hangzhou — Before leaving Wuxi there is a stop at a pearl factory, where freshwater pearls are grown, graded and strung, and where you can see why the gem has carried meaning in China for so long. The rest of th
7. Day 7: Tea and West Lake, then Shanghai — Longjing leaf grows on the hills around Hangzhou, and Meijiawu Tea Village, in the green country above West Lake, is where the day begins. You watch the leaf picked by hand, then pressed and dried in
8. Day 8: Shanghai History Museum and a half day in the city — Shanghai History Museum fills the morning, and it does what a city museum should: the port's story from small settlement to trading hub to the skyline outside, told in sequence. The afternoon is a hal
9. Day 9: Flying home from Shanghai — You are driven out to Shanghai's airport for the flight home. Rooms stay yours until midday, and the front desk will keep your bags if your flight leaves later in the day.
10. Day 10: Back home in Australia and New Zealand — Home again, after ten days of palaces, canals and skylines.

What's Included

• Return international flights on a full-service carrier, economy class
• One flight within China, from Beijing down to Shanghai, or a high-speed rail sector when seats allow
• Eight nights in 4-star hotels
• Beijing: the Ramada Beijing North (comparable standard)
• Suzhou: the Snowy Sea Hotel (comparable standard)
• Wuxi: the Mingdu Hotel (comparable standard)
• Hangzhou: the Fubang International Hotel (comparable standard)
• Shanghai: the Courtyard by Marriott in Jiading (comparable standard)
• Breakfast every day
• A Peking Duck lunch
• One dinner cooked and served in a Hutong family home
• Air-conditioned private vehicles for road travel
• The internal sector by air or high-speed rail, Beijing to Shanghai
• Airport transfers in both directions