China Grand Tour — 28 Nights

Fly from London to Beijing (one convenient stop en route). On arrival you are met at the gate side of customs and taken by private car to the Novotel Beijing Xinqiao, your base for four nights in the heart of the old city.

A private half-day guided tour of Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City — 980 buildings and the home of 24 emperors across five centuries. Hotel pick-up and drop-off included, with the afternoon free to rest or explore the streets around your hotel.

A gentle two-to-three-hour private visit to the Temple of Heaven — the most perfectly proportioned building in China — and its surrounding park, alive each morning with Beijingers practising tai chi, calligraphy and the two-string erhu. The rest of the day is yours.

A free day until early evening, when a rickshaw carries you through the hutong lanes of old Beijing — the courtyard neighbourhoods largely unchanged for centuries — followed by a Peking duck dinner, the dish Wei regards as the essential introduction to the capital's food culture.

Take the bullet train to Pingyao — fast, smooth and scenic, with private transfers at both stations. Pingyao is the best-preserved walled town in China, a Ming-Qing banking capital frozen in time. This afternoon, a walking tour of the Ancient City: the city wall, the Rishengchang draft bank (China's first) and Ming-Qing Street. Two nights in a traditional courtyard hotel inside the walls.

A day at leisure in the old town — courtyards, temples and teahouses at your own pace. This evening, the acclaimed 'Encore Pingyao' show: an immersive walking-theatre production telling the story of the town's Qing-dynasty bodyguards, staged in a purpose-built recreation of old Pingyao.

Take the bullet train to Xi'an — fast, smooth and scenic, with private transfers at both stations. This afternoon, an introduction to the ancient capital: the Ming city wall, the Bell and Drum Towers, and the lantern-lit lanes and street food of the Muslim Quarter.

A full-day private guided tour to the Terracotta Warriors — 8,000 life-size soldiers, horses and chariots buried with the first emperor Qin Shi Huang in 210 BC and rediscovered by well-digging farmers in 1974. Pit 1 (the infantry), Pit 2 (cavalry and archers) and Pit 3 (the command post) each reveal something different. Hotel pick-up and drop-off included.

A relaxed two-hour private visit to Huaqing Palace at the foot of Mount Li — the Tang-dynasty hot-spring retreat of emperors and the setting for the famous romance of Emperor Xuanzong and Yang Guifei. The afternoon and evening are free in Xi'an.

Take the bullet train to Chengdu — fast, smooth and scenic, with private transfers at both stations. This afternoon, a first taste of Sichuan's easy-going capital: Wenshu Monastery, the finest Chan Buddhist temple in the city, and the snack stalls and teahouses of Wenshuyuan Street beside it.

A two-hour private excursion to People's Park and the century-old Heming Teahouse — bamboo chairs, jasmine tea topped up endlessly from long-spouted kettles, and Chengdu life unfolding around you, from ear-cleaners to matchmakers' corner. The rest of the day is free.

Take the bullet train to Chongqing — fast, smooth and scenic, with private transfers at both stations. This afternoon, wander Ciqikou Ancient Town, a Ming-era porcelain port on the Jialing River whose stone lanes are now full of teahouses and Sichuan snack stalls.

A free day, then an evening excursion to see Chongqing at its most theatrical: the eleven illuminated storeys of the Hongya Cave stilt-house complex tumbling down the cliff to the river, and the night panoramas from the Qiansimen Bridge and Raffles viewpoints.

A private car takes you to the dock in Chongqing, where you board Century Sun and settle into your balcony cabin as the ship sets sail downstream. Unpack once: for the next three nights the scenery comes to you. Meals aboard are included.

A half-day shore excursion to Shibaozhai — the extraordinary twelve-storey red wooden pagoda built against a riverside crag — or the temple complex of Fengdu, depending on the sailing schedule. The rest of the day is spent on deck as the river narrows towards the gorges.

The heart of the cruise: a full day sailing the Three Gorges — Qutang's sheer gates, Wu's mist-wrapped peaks — with a side excursion by sampan up the emerald Shennong Stream, poled through a narrow canyon by local boatmen whose families have worked this water for generations.

Leave the ship after breakfast and travel on to Wulingyuan by private car — a long but comfortable drive into the Hunan mountains, arriving at the gateway town to Zhangjiajie National Forest Park for a three-night stay.

A full-day private tour of the National Forest Park — more than 3,000 quartz-sandstone pillars rising sheer from subtropical forest, the landscape that inspired Avatar's floating mountains. The glass-fronted Bailong Elevator carries you 326 metres up the cliff face to the Yuanjiajie viewpoints; park shuttle buses link the main overlooks.

A half-day private excursion — either the cable car up Tianzi Mountain for the grandest panoramas over the stone forest, or a serene boat trip on Baofeng Lake, a jade-green mountain lake hidden between the peaks. The afternoon is free to rest.

Transfer by private car to Zhangjiajie City, then take the world's longest cable car ride up Tianmen Mountain. At the top: cliff-hugging walkways (including an optional glass-floored section for the brave), and the vast natural arch of Heaven's Gate. Overnight in the city.

Fly from Zhangjiajie to Guilin, with private transfers at both ends. This afternoon, a half-day introduction to Guilin's karst landscape: Elephant Trunk Hill, the river-drinking rock that is the city's emblem, and Solitary Beauty Peak in the grounds of the old Ming princes' palace.

A day at leisure in Guilin, then an evening boat cruise on the Two Rivers and Four Lakes circuit — the illuminated waterways that ring the old city, sliding beneath lit pagodas and camphor trees, with cormorant fishermen demonstrating their ancient craft.

The most famous river journey in China: cruise the Li River from Guilin to Yangshuo, four hours of karst peaks, grazing water buffalo and bamboo groves mirrored in green water — the landscape of a thousand years of Chinese painting. Your luggage travels ahead by road, and your car meets you at the Yangshuo jetty.

A free day amid the limestone peaks — cycle the country lanes, drift on a bamboo raft, or do nothing at all from a riverside chair. This evening, a stroll along West Street, Yangshuo's 1,400-year-old flagstone lane of cafés, silk shops and street musicians.

Fly from Guilin to Shanghai (around two and a half hours), with private transfers at both ends. Your hotel, Les Suites Orient, sits at the southern end of the Bund itself — many rooms look straight across the Huangpu to the Pudong skyline.

A full-day private tour of essential Shanghai: the colonnaded sweep of the Bund, the Ming-dynasty rockeries and goldfish pools of Yu Garden, the lanes of the Old City, and Nanjing Road — one of the busiest shopping streets on earth. Hotel pick-up and drop-off included.

Take the bullet train to Suzhou — barely half an hour — with private transfers at both stations. The rest of the day is given to the gentlest pleasures of the trip: a UNESCO-listed classical garden, the whitewashed canal houses of Pingjiang Road, and a slow canal boat through the old town.

Take the bullet train to Hangzhou, with private transfers at both stations. Your final full day is spent on and around West Lake — a boat cruise past willow-fringed causeways and island pagodas, and a visit to Longjing village to taste China's most celebrated green tea where it grows. Marco Polo called Hangzhou the finest city in the world; it makes a fitting last chapter.

A private car takes you to Hangzhou airport for your homeward flight to London (one convenient stop en route), landing with a month of China behind you.