Itinerary

Day 1

London/Shangahi

Fly non-stop from London Heathrow to Shanghai with China Eastern Airlines.

Day 2

Shanghai

On arrival be transferred for a stay two nights at the 3*New Asia Hotel.

Day 3

Shanghai

Stroll around the delightful Yuyuan Garden, its ponds, pavilions, paths and plants creating an infinitely varied series of exquisite views, and visit Jade Buddha Temple whose statues were carried all the way from Burma. Later walk along Shanghai’s riverside promenade, the Bund, with 19th century European architecture along one bank, and the futuristic skyscrapers of Pudong opposite.  B/L/D

Day 4

Chengdu 

Fly to Chengdu for two nights at the 5*Tibet Hotel.  In a quaint and colourful part of the old town, step back in time as you walk along Kuanzhai Lanes, lined with traditional houses decorated with intricate woodcarving and red lanterns.  B/D

Day 5

Chendgu

Get close to one of the world’s most adorable and endangered animals at the Panda Research Base here which both supports those living in the wild and also works on a successful breeding programme. Later attend an intriguing and entertaining Sichuan ‘face-changing’ Opera – see if you can spot how the performers swap their masks so quickly!  B/L/D

Day 6

Lhasa

Fly to Lhasa to stay four nights at the 5*Brahmaputra Hotel. The rest of the day is free to rest and acclimatise to Tibet’s high altitudes, 12,000ft above sea level here in Lhasa and rising to 15,750ft later in the journey.  B/L/D

Day 7

Lhasa

Visit the 15th century Sera Monastery and its Great Assembly Hall, dormitories and colleges where 10,000 monks used to live. Later, follow the throngs of pilgrims as they make the clockwise circuit along Barkhor Street that encircles the golden-roofed Jokhang Temple, home to the most sacred Buddha statue for Tibetans.  B/L/D

Day 8

Lhasa

425ft above the city on Red Mountain stands the fortress-like Potala Palace,13 storeys high  and with 1,000 rooms filled with statues, chapels, manuscripts and murals. Potala was the winter palace of the Dalai Lamas and Tibet’s political and spiritual headquarters for centuries, and later you will visit the summer palace, Norbulingka, a complex of delightful pavilions and gardens outside the city.  B/L/D

Day 9

Lhasa

One of the three great monasteries of Tibet, Drepung Monastery is a religious university where around 600 monks live – in its heyday before the Potola Palace was built there were over 10,000 and it was the largest in the world.  B/L/D

Day 10

Gyantze 

Leave Lhasa and drive along the Southern Friendship Highway in the direction of Kathmandu, over the Kampa La mountain pass to Yamdrok Lake, the sacred ‘holy sapphire’ and female guardian of Buddhism in Tibet. Continue past the Karo La Glacier to the small town of Gyantze and stay overnight at the 3*Gyantze Hotel..  B/L/D

Day 11

Shigatze

This morning visit Palkhor Chode Monastery and its nine-storey pyramid-like structure known as a kumbum with 76 chapels lined with lavish murals. Continue to Shigatze to stay at the Shandong Mansion Hotel for two nights. B/L/D

Day 12

Shigatze

Visit the Tashilhungpo Monastery, founded by the first Dalai Lama in the 15th century and traditional seat of his second-in-command, the Panchen Lama, ever since. See the jewel-encrusted tomb of the tragic 10th Panchen Lama, the 86ft-high Maitreya Buddha statue, murals and the immense Thangka Wall.  B/L/D

Day 13

Lhasa

Drive back to Lhasa, ‘the Ground of the Gods’, through rugged scenery along the Northern Friendship Highway for a final night in Tibet.  B/L/D

Day 14

Zhongdian

Fly to Zhongdian in the north-west of China’s Yunnan province, a photogenic town perched on a Himalayan plateau and once a staging post on the Southern Silk Road down to Vietnam. It was renamed Shangri La a few years ago due to its natural beauty, and we stay two nights in this ‘fabled paradise’ at the 4*Guanguang Hotel.  B/L/D

Day 15

Zhongdian

Visit Songzanlin Monastery, dating from the 16^th century and rebuilt following damage during the 1959 invasion of Tibet. Drive out to Napa and Shudu Lakes, surrounded by snowy mountains, forests, rich pastures and picturesque hillside hamlets. Visit one of these to meet a local Tibetan family and enjoy a hearty home-cooked dinner.  B/L/D

Day 16

Lijiang

Drive south to Lijiang, once the capital of the Naxi Kingdom, en-route admiring the world’s deepest canyon at Tiger Leaping Gorge where the Yangtze is forced through a narrow gap in the rocks. In Lijiang visit the local beauty spots Black Dragon Pool and Lion Hill, and listen to the traditional music of the Naxi orchestra. Stay two nights at 4*Old Town Hotel.  B/L

Day 17

Lijiang

Take a cable car ride up sacred Jade Dragon Snow Mountain and the southernmost glacier in the northern hemisphere, and explore Lijiang’s quaint old town with its 354 bridges and elaborately carved Naxi houses.  B/L

Day 18

Dali

Drive south through the green, rural lands of the Bai people and pass Erhai Lake to Dali, to stay at the 4*Landscape Hotel for the night.  Ascend Cangshan Mountain by chairlift for glorious panoramas, see the elegant, thousand-year-old towers of the Song Dynasty Three Pagodas and the exotic Catholic Church, and shop in the pleasant old quarter. B/L/D

Day 19

Kunming

Fly to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan and staging post along the old trading route to neighbouring Burma, part of the southern Silk Road, and stay two nights at the 4*Jinjiang Hotel.  B

Day 20

Kunming

Today visit the extraordinary Stone Forest, a hundred square miles of thin, jagged limestone towers like giant trees. See too the Western Hills that locals say resemble a beautiful girl reclining on the banks of Dianchi Lake, and the Tang Dynasty Bamboo Temple.  B/L

Day 21

Shanghai

Fly to Shanghai for an overnight stay at the East Asia Hotel. B

Day 22

Shanghai / London Heathrow

Fly from Shanghai to London Heathrow with China Eastern. B