4-Day Xi'an and Luoyang Private Tour by Bullet Train

Summary

DAY 1 Arrive in Xian: Shaanxi History Museum, Big Wild Goose Pagoda, Muslim Quarter, Bell Tower
DAY 2 Xian: Terracotta Warriors, Xian Ancient City Wall
DAY 3 Xian--Luoyang By Bullet Train: Arrive in Luoyang, Shaolin Temple
DAY 4 Luoyang Departure: Longmen Grottoes, Luoyang Museum, White Horse Temple

Day 1 Arrive in Xian

In the morning your guide meets you at the Xi'an train station or your hotel lobby, holding a Your Way Holiday sign, and your private driver takes over from there. This first day stays inside the old city: a national museum, a brick Buddhist pagoda, the walled Muslim Quarter and the Bell Tower, so you get your bearings in Xi'an before the tour moves on in the days ahead.

Shaanxi History Museum

You start at the Shaanxi History Museum, a short walk from the Big Wild Goose Pagoda and one of the largest museums in the country. Its galleries follow the dynasties that ruled from the surrounding Guanzhong plain, arranged through an introductory hall, permanent exhibitions, special shows and a painting gallery. Bronze vessels, terracotta figures, Tang pottery and Buddhist stone carvings trace court and daily life across many centuries, which makes it a good place to begin before the older sights elsewhere in the city.

Big Wild Goose Pagoda

A short walk away rises the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, a plain brick Buddhist tower in the south of the city, built without mortar and stepped up in simple tiers. It was raised in the Tang dynasty to hold the sutras and statues the monk Xuanzang carried back from India, and he worked for years translating them at the adjacent Da Ci'en Temple. You can climb the tower for a view over the park, and in the evening the square to the south puts on a large musical fountain show.

Muslim Quarter

In the afternoon the tour moves into the old Muslim Quarter, a grid of lanes beside the Great Mosque where Hui families have run food stalls and small shops for generations. The eating is the point: lamb-and-bread soup (yangrou paomo) made with hand-torn flatbread, cold rice noodles, cumin beef skewers, and roujiamo, the local crisp bun filled with chopped meat. Your guide helps you order and move between the stalls so you can taste several dishes in one stop.

Bell Tower

The day ends at the Bell Tower, a timber Ming pavilion raised on a stone base where the city's four main streets meet, with the Drum Tower a short walk to the north. It once kept the hours, its bell rung at dawn to open the gates of the walled city. Inside hang a large historic bell and inscribed steles, and painted beams and couplets run along the columns; from the top gallery the roofs of the old town spread out in four directions.

After the Bell Tower your guide drives you back to your hotel in Xi'an. The evening is free; if you would like a walk along the illuminated city wall or a place for dinner, your guide can point you the right way. Tomorrow stays in Xi'an for the Terracotta Warriors and the ancient city wall before you head on to Luoyang by bullet train the day after.

Day 2 Xian

Terracotta Warriors

A short drive of about fifty minutes east of the city takes you to the Terracotta Warriors, the buried army made for Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of a unified China. Thousands of life-sized clay soldiers, archers, officers and horses were placed around his tomb around 210 to 209 BCE to guard him in the afterlife, and were rediscovered by farmers digging a well in the twentieth century. The figures stand in ranks inside the excavation pits, each with a different face and rank, and the site forms part of a UNESCO World Heritage listing. Your guide walks you through the main pits and the museum of finds.

The City Wall

Back in the city you climb the Xi'an City Wall, a fortified loop built in the early Ming dynasty in the fourteenth century on parts of the older imperial city. It runs about 14 kilometers around the old centre and rises some 12 meters, with gate towers, watchtowers and a broad walkway along the top, and it is among the largest and best-preserved city walls still standing in China. On the ramparts you can walk a stretch of the crest or rent a bicycle to ride the circuit, looking down on the tree-lined avenue that follows the moat outside.

When you are done your guide drives you back to your hotel in Xi'an and the evening is free. Tomorrow the tour changes direction: your driver takes you to the station for the bullet train east to Luoyang, the old rival capital further down the line.

Day 3 Xian--Luoyang by Train

In the morning your driver takes you from the hotel to Xi'an North station for the bullet train east to Luoyang, a ride of about an hour and a half. A new local guide waits at the station exit with a sign bearing your name, helps with your bags and takes over for the rest of the trip.

Shaolin Temple

The first stop is Shaolin Temple, set against the slopes of Mount Songshan and long regarded as the ancestral home of Chan, or Zen, Buddhism. The monastery was founded in the fifth century, and although most of the buildings you see today were rebuilt in the Ming and Qing dynasties, the layout follows the older plan across some thirty thousand square metres. Your guide leads you through the courtyards and halls, explaining the temple's place in both Buddhist history and Chinese martial legend.

Halls, Steles and Murals

Around the complex stand halls, pavilions and brick pagoda towers added over many centuries rather than in a single campaign. One hall is known for its Ming-dynasty Buddhist wall paintings, which run along three walls and show scenes of worship and attendant figures. The carved steles, tablet halls and small tomb pagodas recorded in the grounds give a sense of how the temple was rebuilt, damaged and restored again across the dynasties.

The Shaolin Martial Art

Shaolin is equally famous as the birthplace of a school of Chinese martial arts. According to temple tradition the monks built up physical training to complement long hours of seated Chan practice, and the resulting style, often called Shaolin kung fu, became one of the most celebrated martial lineages in China. Your guide explains how the discipline grew out of the monastery's religious life rather than from the fighting sports of the secular world.

In the afternoon your guide and driver transfer you to your hotel in Luoyang, where you check in and the rest of the day is free. Tomorrow the Luoyang sights continue, opening with the rock-cut caves of the Longmen Grottoes to the south-west of the city.

Day 4 Luoyang Departure

In the morning your guide meets you in the hotel lobby for your last day, given over to the sights of Luoyang, the old eastern capital. You start outside the city at the Longmen Grottoes, return for the Luoyang Museum after lunch, and finish at White Horse Temple before your transfer to the station or your hotel.

Longmen Grottoes

The Longmen Grottoes are carved into limestone cliffs along the Yi River, which cuts between Mount Xiang on the east bank and Mount Longmen on the west. Work on the niches ran on and off for centuries, and the whole stretch is protected as a UNESCO World Heritage site. You follow the cliff face for about a kilometer past caves, seated Buddhas and guardian figures while your guide explains how the carving style shifted from one dynasty to the next. Longmen is grouped with Mogao near Dunhuang and Yungang near Datong as the three great Buddhist cave complexes of China.

Luoyang Museum

After lunch your guide drives into the city to the Luoyang Museum. Opened in 1958 and rebuilt in 1974 on the north side of Zhongzhou Road beside Wangcheng Park, it holds finds from digs in and around Luoyang and from the old city, including objects from palaces and temples. The collection runs from Neolithic times through the long span of dynasties that made Luoyang a capital, and your guide picks out the bronzes, pottery and Buddhist steles that best tell that story.

Among the displays are inscribed stones, terracotta figures and everyday wares that map the daily and ceremonial life of what is sometimes called the capital of nine dynasties. Luoyang and its surroundings have also yielded a very large number of excavated tombs, and the museum interprets part of that burial heritage as a chapter of the city's longer history.

White Horse Temple

The last stop is White Horse Temple, traditionally founded in 68 AD and often called the cradle of Chinese Buddhism. Most of what you see dates from a Ming-dynasty rebuilding, laid out as a series of south-facing courtyards rising on a central axis, each hall set a little higher than the one before. Inside are images of Sakyamuni, Maitreya and Amitabha together with other Buddhas and bodhisattvas. In a side courtyard stands the Qiyun Pagoda, a small square brick tower and one of the earlier pagodas of this kind in China.

When the day ends your guide drives you to Luoyang Longmen Station if you are catching a train onward, or back to your hotel in Luoyang. Your driver handles the bags and your guide is on hand for any last questions about your onward plans. A table of sample Xi'an to Luoyang and Luoyang to Xi'an high-speed train times follows for reference.

Luoyang to Xi'an Train Schedule

Price Per Person in US Dollars