China icons with Zhangjiajie

You arrive at Beijing Capital International Airport, where your local guide meets you and transfers you to your hotel in the city centre. The rest of the day is yours to settle in at your own pace.

After breakfast, you head to Tiananmen Square - one of the world's largest public plazas and the symbolic heart of modern China. From here, you enter the Forbidden City, the vast imperial palace complex that served as the seat of Chinese power for nearly 500 years. Its halls, courtyards and gardens remain among the best-preserved historic sites in the country.

In the afternoon, you visit the Temple of Heaven, a masterpiece of Ming and Qing Dynasty architecture, before taking part in a traditional tea ceremony at a local tea house.

After breakfast, you head out of the city to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall - one of the most scenic and well-preserved stretches of this extraordinary monument.

Walking along the ramparts, it's easy to appreciate the sheer scale of what was built here and the ingenuity it required.

Beijing - Xi'an. After breakfast, you take a walking tour through the Hutong area - Beijing's historic network of narrow alleyways and traditional courtyard residences, offering a quieter side of the city before you leave it behind.

Lunch is included before you transfer to Beijing West Railway Station for a high-speed train journey to Xi'an. Your local guide meets you on arrival and transfers you to your hotel in the city centre.

After breakfast, you visit the Terracotta Warrior Museum - home to the silent army buried with China's first emperor over 2,000 years ago and widely regarded as one of the most significant archaeological discoveries in history. The scale and detail of the figures is striking in person.

In the afternoon, you visit the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, one of the oldest surviving Tang Dynasty structures in China, followed by a visit to a Terracotta Warrior factory to see how replicas are crafted using traditional techniques. Dinner is on your own this evening.

Xi'an - Zhangjiajie. After breakfast, you transfer to the airport for your morning flight to Zhangjiajie. On arrival, your local guide meets you and you head to lunch before the day's main event: Tianmen Mountain.

You ride the world's longest cable car to the summit, where dramatic views open up across the forested landscape below. The mountain is named for its extraordinary natural arch - a vast opening in the rockface known as Heaven's Gate - which has drawn legends and daredevils alike for centuries.

Today takes you into Wulingyuan Scenic Area and Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, the landscape of towering sandstone pillars that inspired the floating mountains in Avatar. You take a cable car up to Tianzi Mountain, where the peaks rise sharply from the forest floor and mist rolls between them on most mornings.

From there, you continue to Yuanjiajie to cross the First Bridge Under Heaven and take in views of Avatar's Hallelujah Mountain - the formations are every bit as surreal as the film made them look. You descend via the Bailong Elevator, the highest outdoor lift of its kind in the world. Dinner is included this evening at a local restaurant.

Zhangjiajie - Shanghai. After breakfast, you visit Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon, where the main draw is the glass-bottomed bridge - the world's longest and highest of its kind - stretching over the gorge far below. The Coiling Dragon Cliff skywalk, perched at 1,400 metres above sea level, offers similarly vertiginous views for those who want them.

Lunch is included before your afternoon or evening flight to Shanghai, where you are met on arrival and transferred to your hotel.

After breakfast, your day begins at Yu Garden in the old city - a beautifully preserved Ming Dynasty garden that has somehow survived intact as the metropolis grew up around it. From there, you walk The Bund, where colonial-era facades line one side of the river and the gleaming towers of Pudong face them across the water.

The afternoon takes in a silk factory, followed by time on Nanjing Road and in the French Concession. Meals this afternoon and evening are on your own.

After breakfast, the day is entirely yours. Shanghai rewards independent exploration - whether you head back to the French Concession's café-lined streets, browse the markets, or take the Maglev out to Pudong for the views from above.

After a final breakfast, you check out of the hotel and transfer to the airport for your departure flight. End of service.