China Cultural Heritage Tour for Students

Your China Educational Tours bilingual guide will welcome you at the arrival hall of Beijing airport. And then drive to your hotel and help you with check-in.

Have a leisurely breakfast at your hotel and you will be picked up by your guide to start the exciting trip. The first stop is Tiananmen Square. With the Great Hall of the People, Chairman Mao Memorial Hall, and the Monument to the People's Heroes surrounding it, Tiananmen Square is regarded as the symbolic center of Chinese politics.
The highlight of the morning is a Treasure Hunt in the Forbidden City. With our tailor-made program, your guide will take you to discover the special travel route to avoid the crowds. The Treasure Hunt program will help the students to focus on the palace itself, the history and meaning behind it.

In Front of the Hall of Supreme Harmony

After lunch in a vegetarian restaurant, you will drive to the Hutong area. Hutongs are the alleys which connect the local community with each other. It is the best place for you to interact with locals and experience their lives. You will meet a local Chinese Yoyo master and learn to really play with the yoyo, which has a history of 1,700 years. The rest of the day is just free.

An Alley of Hutongs

In the early morning, you will visit another cultural heritage site, the Temple of Heaven. It used to be a place where emperors held the heaven worship ceremony and prayed for a good harvest. It’s now a public park where lots of local people do their morning exercise. A good way to interact with locals is having a Taiji Learning Class here.

The Temple of Heaven

After lunch, you will drive to Mutianyu Great Wall. To avoid the crowds, we choose to visit in the afternoon while most visitors come in the morning. We highly recommend this section as it’s less crowded and more scenic. Furthermore, it’s the only section with a cable car, chairlift, and toboggan attached. The students would love those options.

Take the Chairlift up to the Mountain

After breakfast, you’ll get ready to check-out and start the tour today. It will be an easy and relaxed morning visit to the Summer Palace. As the best preserved and the largest imperial garden in China, it was the favorite garden of the Empress Dowager Cixi. Don’t miss the Long Corridor and Marble Boat in this fantastic garden.

The Kunming Lake in the Summer Palace

You will take a bullet train from Beijing to Datong after lunch. The high speed bullet train is one of the modern Great Inventions in China. The fastest speed it can reach is 360 km/h (223 mile/h) on the date of writing. It will take about 2hrs from Beijing to Datong. Upon your arrival, your guide in Datong will welcome you at the train station and transfer you to your comfortable hotel.

You are going to see another cultural heritage site in the morning: Yungang Grottoes. Endowed with more than 50,000 stone statues, Yungang Grottoes is one of the four most famous grottoes in China. Traveling through the grottoes is just like reading a history book. You will learn numerous pieces of information about Buddhism and the Chinese culture of stone carvings.

Exquisite Stone Carving

Have lunch in a local restaurant, you are going to try local specialties of various wheaten foods. After lunch, you will drive about 1 hour to the Hanging Monastery. With the long history of this monastery, you will be amazed by people’s wisdom to build this impressive temple alongside the steep mountain 1,500 years ago. Follow the narrow path that leads to the top of the mountain, and you will find the different caves with vivid Buddhist stone statues in them.

The Hanging Monastery

Your tour guide and driver will transfer you to the train station after breakfast. The bullet train from Datong to Pingyao takes about 3 hours. The guide in Pingyao will meet you at the train station exit and transfer you to the hotel.

You will visit a cultural heritage site, Pingyao Ancient Town, in the afternoon. It’s one of the best well-preserved Four Ancient Towns in China. Explore the Rishengchang Bank, Security Guard Company, Ancient Government Office, and City Wall, and you’ll be immersed in the ancient life of 2,700 years ago.

The Houses in Pingyao Ancient Town

After breakfast, you will drive about 1 hour to get to the Wang Family Compound. It’s such a big compound that includes 35 courtyards and 342 rooms. You will be amazed by how big an ancient Chinese family was. Explore the different courtyards and you will experience the Chinese traditional marriage customs, ancient architecture, educational system, and social hierarchy.

A Corner of Wang Family Compound

After lunch, we will take about another 40 minute drive to Zhangbi Village. It’s a well preserved village with the great ancient tunnel military constructions. It’s the first village which was built based on astrology theory in China. It’s also a live village as you still can see local people’s daily life there.

The Ancient Military Tunnel

This morning, you will take another train from Pingyao to Xi’an. It’s a 3 hour high speed train ride. Upon your arrival, the guide in Xi’an will welcome you and transfer you to your hotel.

After lunch, go to visit the Hanzhong Ancient Academy. With a history of more than 400 years, it’s one of the four most famous ancient academies in China. You will have a chance to learn about the ancient educational system. To immerse yourself in this place, we highly recommend the Han Costume Fitting Experience. You can try on the Han costume, which is very popular among young generations nowadays.

Han Costume

Visit Yongxingfang Food Street to find your own dinner. Different from the Muslim Quarter, this is a place for local foodies. Exploring the food street and trying different local snacks is another adventure of your educational trip.

The Terracotta Warriors and Horses Museum is at the top of the list of Chinese cultural heritage sites. Drive about 1 hour from downtown Xi’an, and you will be amazed to find out that there are more than 7,000 warriors in the current excavated 3 pits. After the visit, you will experience the special activity which is how to make a Terracotta figurine in a local factory. Follow the steps to make your own terracotta figurine, and keep it as a special gift.

The Terracotta Warriors and Horses

You will drive back to the city and pay a visit to the Ancient City Wall. With the width of 15 meters, you will be surprised that a biking tour can be arranged on the city wall. With the one hour bicycle ride, you can have a bird’s eye view of the city which combines the ancient and modern architecture.

Yongning Gate of the City Wall

To satisfy your curiosity, your tour guide will take you to visit some local people’s house. It’s a typical Chinese family with a hospitable host. The host will introduce her family and teach you how to make dumplings. It’s a staple food for people from northern China.

Make Dumplings at a Chinese Family

After lunch, you will visit the Small Wild Goose Pagoda and watch a Shadow Play Performance. As the witness of how Buddhism was introduced to China, the Small Wild Goose Pagoda is the heritage of Buddhist architecture of the Tang Dynasty. The Shadow Play is regarded as the origin of modern movies. After the visit, the guide and driver will transfer you to the airport for your flight to Shanghai.

The Small Wild Goose Pagoda

After breakfast, you will join in a 3 hour walking tour to the Former French Concession. Walking through the area is like reading a book of the modern and contemporary history about Shanghai. Each building has its own story.

The Former French Concession

After lunch, pay a visit to the Yu Garden, a classical Chinese garden with elegant pavilions, ponds, rockeries and corridors. After that, drive about 30 minutes to get to the Oriental Pearl Tower. It’s an ideal place to have a bird’s eye view of this metropolis. Hold your breath and try the glass observation deck, feel the 400 meters of emptiness under your feet.

Oriental Pearl Tower

After breakfast, your tour guide and driver will take you to the airport. The guide will help you to check-in at the counter, and you will go through the security check on your own and fly back to home sweet home.