Login
Five days across two of north China’s defining cities, built around the details that make a short trip feel anything but rushed.
In Beijing, a professional costume studio transforms your morning into a Qing-dynasty photo shoot before you walk the same palace grounds in modern clothes. A Peking Opera evening at Meifu pairs refined tea ceremony with live performance. The Great Wall day takes you to Mutianyu — forested ridgeline, fewer crowds — before the Summer Palace closes the afternoon with imperial garden scenery and Olympic-district landmarks at dusk. On Day 4 the route jumps to Tianjin, where colonial concession architecture, the Porcelain House, and a sunset Ferris wheel ride over the Hai River offer a completely different texture. Everything wraps with a free morning in Beijing and a departure at your own pace.
Check in at your Beijing hotel and settle in at your own pace. When you’re ready, your guide meets you in the lobby for the evening programme.
The first outing is a Shichahai rickshaw ride — a pedal-powered loop through the hutong lanes that fan out from the old lake district. The alleys are narrow enough that you hear the neighbours’ televisions and smell what’s cooking next door. Your driver threads through courtyards and doorways that cars will never reach, past chess games on foldout stools and laundry drying across the lane.
The evening shifts to Meifu, a fine-dining venue styled after Peking Opera master Mei Lanfang’s private residence. Over a refined tea ceremony, you settle into the courtyard atmosphere before a live Peking Opera performance begins — painted faces, silk sleeves, and the sharp crack of percussion in an intimate setting, not a stadium.
Dinner is on your own tonight. Your guide recommends Huguo Temple Street (*Huguosi Jie*) — a local food lane where you can try old Beijing snacks in one short walk: sesame paste noodles, fried dough twists, and whatever else catches your eye.
After breakfast, the morning begins at a professional costume studio where you’re transformed into a Qing-dynasty court figure — full hair, makeup, and period wardrobe handled by the stylists. The effect is theatrical and surprisingly convincing.
Still in costume, you head to the Temple of Heaven — the triple-roofed ceremonial hall where Ming and Qing emperors prayed for harvest, built entirely without nails. The setting is made for the photos: vermillion walls, blue-tiled rooftops, and the circular Altar of Heaven framing every shot. A professional photographer works alongside your group, capturing portraits and candid moments in the imperial setting. Retouched digital photos are included.
From the Temple of Heaven, you continue to the Forbidden City — the world’s largest surviving imperial palace, with 9,999 rooms behind vermillion walls. Your guide walks you through the ceremonial axis and into the deeper compounds that most visitors miss. After the shoot wraps, you change back into your own clothes and continue exploring the palace as a regular visitor, seeing the same halls from a different angle.
Dinner is a proper Peking duck meal — lacquered-skin roast duck carved tableside and wrapped with scallion and sauce. Beijing’s signature dish, and the right way to close a day spent inside its most famous buildings.
An early departure after breakfast heads north to Mutianyu Great Wall — a forested section with fewer crowds than Badaling and one of the best-preserved stretches of Ming-dynasty wall architecture. The hike follows the ridge through watchtowers with views dropping away on both sides into thick green canopy. The pace is scenic, not strenuous — your guide tailors the walking distance to the group.
In the afternoon, the route returns to Beijing for the Summer Palace — 300 hectares of imperial garden that Empress Cixi rebuilt with the navy budget. Your guide walks you through the Long Corridor’s painted panels, up to the Foxiangge (*Tower of Buddhist Incense*) for the hilltop lake view, and along Kunming Lake where the Seventeen-Arch Bridge stretches to the far shore.
On the way back, the car passes the Bird’s Nest and Water Cube — the 2008 Olympic landmarks that sit just north of the city centre. A brief photo stop lets you take in the scale of the steel-lattice stadium and the blue bubble-clad aquatics centre as the light softens.
Dinner is old Beijing copper-pot hotpot (*shuanrou*) — paper-thin lamb sliced at the table, dipped in sesame paste, and cooked in a charcoal-heated brass pot. The kind of meal that warms you from the inside after a day on the wall.
An 8:00 AM departure takes you southeast to Tianjin — about 90 minutes by road from Beijing — for a full day in a city that feels nothing like the capital.
The first stop is Ancient Culture Street (*Guwenhua Jie*), Tianjin’s Qing-dynasty commercial street where folk art shops, calligraphy studios, and the Tianhou Temple line a pedestrian avenue built in traditional style. Your guide points out the clay figurines (*nirenzhang*) and New Year prints (*yangliuqing*) that are Tianjin’s signature crafts.
From there, you walk through the Five Great Avenues — Tianjin’s former foreign concession district, where over 200 colonial villas in British, French, Italian, and German styles line tree-shaded boulevards. The architecture is a time capsule of treaty-port China, and your guide walks you through the history of each national quarter.
A photo stop at the Porcelain House — a French-style mansion encrusted with millions of antique porcelain fragments — is one of the city’s most visually striking moments, even from the outside.
As the afternoon turns to evening, you board the Tianjin Eye — a giant Ferris wheel built directly over the Hai River, one of only a handful of bridge-mounted observation wheels in the world. The 30-minute ride gives you a panoramic view of the river, the European-style waterfront, and the city skyline as the lights come on.
Dinner is Tianjin specialties — steamed buns (*goubuli*), pancake rolls (*jianbing guozi*), and whatever local dishes your guide recommends for the season. Afterwards, the drive back to Beijing takes about 90 minutes — arrive at your hotel relaxed and ready for a simple departure morning.
A final breakfast at the hotel, then the morning is yours. Browse a neighbourhood market, pick up souvenirs, revisit a favourite street, or simply rest before your journey home.
When your departure time arrives, check out and make your own way to the airport or train station. Your guide can help arrange a taxi or recommend the most efficient route.
