Meet your small group over dinner at a local restaurant in Shanghai. It is an opportunity to get acquainted while sharing your first included meal in the city.

Shanghai’s dining culture draws on the flavours of the Yangtze River Delta, from delicate dumplings to richly seasoned dishes. The restaurant setting offers a welcoming introduction to the city beyond its skyline.

Walk the Bund with your Travel Director, taking in its historic waterfront buildings and views across the Huangpu River to Pudong’s towers. Explore Nanjing Road, where shops and street life capture Shanghai’s restless energy.

Visit a silk factory to see how the fabric is produced and learn about its place in Chinese culture. Together, these stops reveal Shanghai’s trading past, contemporary city life and a craft with deep roots.

Cruise the Yangtze River aboard your ship, with time on deck to watch riverside settlements and steep, wooded slopes pass by. Sail through Xiling, Wu and Qutang gorges, each with a different scale and character.

See the immense Three Gorges Dam from the river as you travel through a landscape shaped by both nature and engineering. Xiling is the longest of the Three Gorges, while Qutang’s narrow entrance frames some of the route’s most dramatic cliffs.

Visit Xiao Guan Shan Folk Culture Park, weather and river conditions permitting, to explore buildings and courtyards that evoke traditional life beside the Yangtze. Carved timber and weathered rooftops provide a closer look at the region’s rural heritage.

If conditions require a change, the included visit is instead to Snow Jade Cave, where illuminated rock formations reveal a different side of the local landscape. The two sites are alternatives, rather than separate included excursions.

Explore Chongqing on an orientation tour through this densely built river city. Stop at Liziba Station to watch a monorail pass through a residential building, a striking response to Chongqing’s steep terrain.

Walk through Jiefangbei, a lively pedestrian district of shops, food stalls and high-rises. The contrast between hillside infrastructure and busy street life offers a vivid introduction to one of China’s major urban centres.

Visit traditional Yaodong cave dwellings near Xi’an on a MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® Experience. Step inside homes built into the region’s loess earth and learn how their design helps insulate them against summer heat and winter cold.

These dwellings represent a longstanding way of life that is becoming less common as housing changes. Your visit helps support local families working to preserve and restore their homes and living heritage.

Walk the Great Wall at Juyongguan, climbing its stone steps for views across the surrounding mountains. This accessible section occupies a strategic pass north of Beijing, where the wall once helped defend approaches to the capital.

Pause at the ramparts to appreciate how the fortification follows the contours of the hills. The setting brings the wall’s military purpose into focus as clearly as its extraordinary scale.

Discover the Three Gorges Dam ship lift, an engineering feature designed to move vessels between water levels at the vast dam complex. See how modern river navigation operates alongside one of the world’s largest hydroelectric projects.

The lift offers a different perspective on the Yangtze: not just a scenic waterway, but a working route transformed by major infrastructure. This optional experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Explore White Emperor City near the entrance to Qutang Gorge. Visit this historic site for its temples, longstanding legends and views over a particularly dramatic stretch of the Yangtze.

Associated with stories from China’s Three Kingdoms period, the site connects the river scenery with the history and literature that have made these gorges famous. This optional excursion is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Explore Fengdu Ghost City, a hillside site known for its statues and imagery drawn from Chinese beliefs about the afterlife. Walk among its unusual figures while hearing the legends connected with the place.

Its theatrical scenes reflect centuries of folk tradition and religious storytelling, giving this Yangtze excursion a character distinct from the region’s scenic stops. This optional experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Discover Xi’an’s craft beer scene in the lively Muslim Quarter. Explore an area known for its busy lanes and food stalls while experiencing a contemporary side of the city’s nightlife.

The quarter reflects Xi’an’s long history as a meeting point for cultures and trade routes. Pairing that distinctive setting with local craft beer offers a contrast to the city’s ancient monuments. This optional experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Try Chinese calligraphy in a Xi’an class, practising the deliberate strokes used to form characters. Working at your own pace gives you a hands-on appreciation of the control and concentration behind the finished marks.

Calligraphy has long been valued in China as an art form as well as a means of writing. This creative session offers a quieter way to connect with that tradition. It is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Visit Beijing’s Temple of Heaven, a ceremonial complex celebrated for its Ming-era architecture and carefully ordered grounds. Explore a place where emperors once performed rites seeking good harvests.

Its striking halls and expansive parkland express the importance of harmony between heaven and earth in imperial thought. The visit offers a different perspective on Beijing’s dynastic past from its palace complex. This optional experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Enjoy a traditional Peking Duck dinner in Beijing, with the city’s celebrated roast duck served in its customary style. Continue to a local square to watch residents gather for music and group dancing, with the chance to join in.

The combination pairs a longstanding culinary speciality with an everyday social tradition. It offers a welcoming look at Beijing life beyond its major monuments. This optional evening is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Glide along Shennong Stream by small boat, leaving the broad Yangtze for a narrower waterway enclosed by steep cliffs and green valleys. The smaller craft brings you close to the rock faces and the changing colours of the water.

Look for ancient hanging coffins set high in the cliffs, traces of burial traditions associated with communities that once lived in this region. Their difficult-to-reach positions add a sense of mystery to this intimate gorge excursion.

Stand before the Terracotta Warriors and Horses near Xi’an, where thousands of life-sized figures were created to guard China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, in the afterlife. Explore the excavation site and look for differences in the figures’ faces, armour and ranks.

Discovered in 1974, this UNESCO-listed archaeological site reveals the scale of the emperor’s burial complex and the skill of the artisans who worked on it more than two millennia ago.

Explore Beijing with your Travel Director, taking in the monumental setting of Tiananmen Square and seeing the Great Hall of the People. Enter the Forbidden City to discover the vast palace complex that housed China’s emperors for more than five centuries.

Courtyards, gates and richly detailed halls convey the formality of imperial court life. The palace’s immense scale makes it one of Beijing’s defining historic landmarks.

Watch skilled artisans work with jade at a Beijing workshop and learn how to distinguish genuine stone from imitation. Discover the material’s origins and the care involved in shaping it into decorative objects.

Jade has held cultural significance in China for millennia, valued for qualities associated with virtue as well as for its beauty. This workshop visit adds context to a craft and material found throughout Chinese art and history.

Cruise the Huangpu River for a waterside view of Shanghai after dark. Look towards the Bund’s illuminated historic facades on one bank and Pudong’s modern towers on the other.

The river has long been central to Shanghai’s development as a port and trading city. Seeing both shorelines from the water makes the contrast between its past and present especially clear. This optional experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Take in Shanghai from Jinmao Tower, one of the landmark skyscrapers in Pudong’s Lujiazui district. From high above the streets, trace the curve of the Huangpu River and pick out the Bund across the water.

The elevated view puts the city’s historic waterfront and modern financial district into perspective. It is a chance to appreciate Shanghai’s striking scale beyond street level. This optional experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Visit the Tribe of the Three Gorges along the Yangtze to explore a scenic riverside setting associated with local traditions. Take in the steep gorge landscape and experience a different perspective from the ship’s deck.

The visit offers a closer encounter with the human heritage of a region often celebrated for its cliffs and waterways. This optional excursion is at additional cost and bookable on tour; available activities may depend on the cruise programme.

Explore a site associated with Qu Yuan, the ancient poet and statesman traditionally linked with the Yangtze region. Learn why his story remains familiar in Chinese cultural memory.

Qu Yuan is closely associated with the traditions behind the Dragon Boat Festival, when communities hold races and eat zongzi, parcels of sticky rice. This visit adds a literary and cultural dimension to the river journey. It is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Enjoy a Tang Dynasty show and dumpling banquet in Xi’an, combining a performance inspired by imperial-era music and dance with one of the city’s best-known foods. The experience also includes a peek behind the curtain.

Xi’an was the Tang capital of Chang’an, a cosmopolitan centre at the eastern end of the Silk Road. The evening draws on that artistic heritage in a lively, staged setting. It is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Join a tai chi session in a Xi’an park and try the measured movements of this Chinese martial art for yourself. The gentle pace invites you to focus on balance, coordination and controlled breathing.

Tai chi is practised in parks across China, where shared exercise is part of everyday public life. Taking part offers a more personal encounter with that tradition than watching from the sidelines. This optional experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Cycle along Xi’an’s ancient city wall for an elevated view of the streets, gates and neighbourhoods on either side. Its broad top makes it possible to experience the fortification as a route through the city rather than a single viewpoint.

The surviving wall dates largely from the Ming dynasty and recalls Xi’an’s importance as a historic capital. This optional cycling experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Dine at Beijing’s SpaceLab, where food arrives by a rollercoaster-style track. Watch the delivery system in action as you sit down for a playful alternative to a conventional restaurant meal.

This experience focuses on the spectacle of how dinner reaches the table, offering a light-hearted contrast to Beijing’s historic sightseeing. It is an optional meal at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Watch the Legend of Kung Fu Show in Beijing for a staged display of martial arts skill. Performers bring strength, precision and choreographed movement together in a theatrical evening.

Kung fu encompasses Chinese martial traditions developed over many generations. This performance presents those traditions through contemporary stagecraft rather than a training session, making it an accessible choice for an evening out. It is at additional cost and bookable on tour.