YANGTZE DELTA TOUR

Day 1: Shanghai – Tunxi
You will be picked up at the hotel and transferred to the airport for your flight to Tunxi. (D)

Day 2 : Tunxi
This morning you will depart for Xidi Village, which has about 120 simple, yet graceful and well preserved Ming and Qing dynasty residences. The origin of the village can be traced back to the 11th century. The village street plan, architecture, water system and decorations are preserved in their original style. You will also visit Hongcun Village, which was founded in 1131 and was originally laid out in the shape of an ox. The western end of the village, called Leigang Hill, resembles an ox head, with two huge trees rising from it like horns. (B/L)

Day 3 : Tunxi – Huangshan
Today you visit the Huangshan. This world famous range, with its jungle of lofty granite peaks, is one of China’s most famous sights. Outlined against the sky are all manner of exotic rocky eminences, many resembling the fantastic mountains depicted in Chinese landscape paintings. The Huangshan has long been renowned for its “four wonders” — pine trees with gnarled branches and rugged trunks clinging to the mountainsides , rocky peaks in a hundred and one shapes, the ocean of clouds, and the hot springs. (B/L/D)

Day 4 : Huangshan – Hanzghou
Travel to Hangzhou by car. (B/L)

Day 5: Hangzhou
This gracious provincial city was once the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty and much of its early charm remains. First and foremost is the landscape of the West Lake , around which ten famous scenes or prospects have been named. We will walk a short distance along the banks of the lake to Huagang Park (Flower Harbour), a public garden and the site of the prospect known as ‘Observing the Fish at Flower Harbour’. This excursion is followed by a visit to the Lingyin Temple, one of the most famous Chan (Zen) temples in China. The principal temple buildings are the huge entrance hall and the 30m high main hall, which face each other across a courtyard in which there are two stone pagodas dating from 960 AD. You will also see, carved into a cliff on the approaches to the temple buildings, the most important group of Buddhist rock carvings south of the Yangtze. (B/L)

Day 6 : Hangzhou – Suzhou
Today you travel by train to Suzhou, a famed silk production centre and home to China’s most famous gardens. It was once regarded as the Venice of the East on account of its ancient canals spanned by quaint hump-backed bridges. Suzhou’s gardens are works of art — a fusion of nature, architecture, poetry and painting. The key elements of these famous gardens are rocks and water. You will visit the Master of the Nets Garden where the main garden space is a lake surrounded by rockwork, halls, covered walkways and pavilions—one of the most charming and tranquil garden scenes in China. There will also be a visit to the Humble Administrator’s Garden, a much larger garden originally built in the early 16th century. In the afternoon you will join a Canal Cruise to enjoy the bustling and unique canal scenery. (B/L)

Day 7: Suzhou – Nanjing
This morning we go on by train to Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu Province, Nanjing has been a city of some importance for at least 2000 years, having been the capital of several regimes including the early period of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1420) and, more recently, that of Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Government. Here you will visit one of the great sights of Nanjing, the 4500m road and rail bridge spanning the Yangtze which opened in 1968. It is a major engineering feat and, high above the river, the views from it are impressive. You will also visit the City Wall. The Ming city wall, over 33km in length and roughly 12m high and 7m broad at the top, was the longest city wall in the world. Parts of it remain, notably in the south of the city where the most impressive gate, the Zhonghua Gate, still stands and has been restored. (B/L)

Day 8 : Nanjing
This morning you will visit Dr Sun Yat-sen’s Mausoleum.
Sun Yat-sen is regarded as the father of modern China. When he died in 1925 a competition was held to design an appropriate mausoleum and construction of the winning design began within a year. In a style borrowing from the nearby Ming tomb, this mausoleum lies at the top of an enormous stone stairway 323m long and 70m wide and to visit it is something of a pilgrimage for many Chinese. You will also visit the Confucius Temple and the surrounding markets. (B/L)

Day 9: Nanjing – Shanghai
Today you will return to Shanghai by train and upon arrival transfer to the hotel. (B)

The prices of above tour are quoted on the basis of a minimum of 2 persons travelling together.