Beijing
2 Nights- Check-in
- Thu, Sept 3
- Check-out
- Sat, Sept 5
Two nights: the landing one and the whole Wall day
AF1421 + AF0202 · Valencia Sept 2 → Beijing Sept 3 · back on KL0896 + KL1535 from Shanghai
Beijing · Chongqing · Zhangjiajie · Furong · Canton · Shanghai
September 3–16, 2026 · 13 nights / 14 days (leaving Valencia on the 2nd)
A trip with two declared halves. The first is measured, filler-free sightseeing: a whole day on the Wall at Mutianyu, one lit-up night in Chongqing, the mountain with a gate to the sky and a Tujia village hung over a waterfall. The second is the real reason for the trip: three nights in Canton to buy pearl and silver where they are actually bought, and four in Shanghai to rest, spend and be looked after. Six stops, three trains and three flights, strung north to south and south to coast without ever doubling back.
The route
North → southwest → mountains → tropics → coast. The route drops from the Wall to the Yangtze, crosses mountain Hunan, falls away to Canton and climbs to the delta to finish in Shanghai. Every hop moves forward: no leg doubles back. Click a marker to jump to its stage.
Where you sleep
Six hotels, still to be chosen. These are each one’s check-in and check-out dates exactly as you must enter them when booking: check-out is always the morning after the last night. The split is deliberately lopsided — Canton and Shanghai take seven of the thirteen nights.
Flight AF1421 Valencia Sept 2, 17:05 → Paris CDG 19:20 · AF0202 CDG 22:45 → Beijing (PEK) Sept 3, 15:55
Two nights: the landing one and the whole Wall day
Flight Domestic flight Beijing (PEK) → Chongqing (CKG) · ~3 h · departing before 08:30
One night: the futuristic city is an afternoon and an evening, which is when it lights up
Train T1 · Chongqing East → Zhangjiajie West · ~2 h 10 by high-speed train
Two nights for Tianmen Mountain, with a spare day if it dawns in fog
Train T2 · Zhangjiajie West → Furongzhen · ~30 min (+ taxi into town)
One night: the millennial town over the waterfall, empty by then
Train T3 · Furongzhen → Guangzhou South · ~5 h 25 direct, no changes
Three business nights: two full market days, Thursday and Friday, plus a closing morning
Flight Flight Canton (CAN) → Shanghai · ~2 h 20 · alternative: a ~7 h train to Hongqiao
Four nights: three full days to rest, shop and be treated
Flight KL0896 Shanghai Pudong (PVG) Sept 16, 11:15 → Amsterdam 19:10 · KL1535 → Valencia 23:00
Stage 1 · Days 1–2 · Nights 1–2 · Sept 3–4
Two nights and a single objective: the Wall at Mutianyu
The table
Beijing eats from the oven and from dough: lacquered duck, wheat in every shape, and a capital that has breakfast on the street before eight. It is the least spicy cooking of the trip — everything changes after Chongqing.
Peking duck
北京烤鸭 · běijīng kǎoyā
The city’s dish: crisp skin carved in front of you, thin pancakes, leek, cucumber and sweet bean sauce. Ordered whole, it feeds three or four. They make soup from the carcass: say yes.
Jianbing
煎饼果子 · jiānbing guǒzi
The street breakfast: a grain crêpe on a hotplate, an egg cracked over it, sauce, coriander and a crisp fried sheet folded inside. 8–12 CNY, two minutes, eaten on the move. It is the breakfast for Wall day.
Noodles in fermented bean sauce
炸酱面 · zhájiàng miàn
Wheat noodles with pork stewed in bean paste, and a fan of raw vegetables to mix in. The Beijing home meal of all time: filling and cheap.
Dumplings and baozi
饺子 · 包子 · jiǎozi · bāozi
Eaten at any hour and they solve any meal. Jiaozi boiled or griddled; baozi, steamed filled buns, are breakfast — steam and a queue at seven in the morning.
Tanghulu
糖葫芦 · tánghúlu
A skewer of hawthorn berries in hard caramel. It is a winter snack, but in the hutongs it sells all year and costs 10 CNY.
Day 1 · Thu, Sept 3
September average Beijing — — — days with rain
Valencia (VLC) París (CDG)
AF1421 · Sept 2, 17:05 → 19:20 · Economy, booking class L
París (CDG) Pekín (PEK)
AF0202 · Sept 2, 22:45 → Sept 3, 15:55 · Economy, booking class G · ~11 h
You left Valencia yesterday at 17:05 and the AF0202 lands at Beijing Capital (PEK) at 15:55. With the transfer, the day really starts around six in the evening: it is half a day, and that is fine.
Nothing today is bought or booked, and that is the point: tomorrow is the one Wall day and it starts early. This evening’s only rule: do not sleep when you reach the hotel. Hold out until eleven and the jet lag sorts itself out.
16:00 – 17:45
Passport control in 30–45 min, and no baggage belt: you are travelling cabin-only, so you walk straight out. Into town, the Airport Express (25 CNY, ~40 min to Dongzhimen plus a metro change) or a taxi (90–130 CNY, 40–60 min depending on traffic). Carry the hotel address written in Chinese on your phone.
17:45
First thing, before the shower: agree tomorrow’s car to Mutianyu at the front desk, leaving at 07:15, with the driver waiting all day. 600–900 CNY per car, price agreed in writing and paid at the end, never up front. It is today’s one unavoidable errand.
18:00 – 19:30
Walk out, even if you do not feel like it. Qianmen Dajie (前门大街), the restored street running down from Tiananmen, and the lanes of Dashilan and Yangmeizhu, a step away. The square and the gate are seen from outside: getting into Tiananmen needs an advance booking and a passport, and with two nights it is not worth it.
19:30 – 21:00
Dumplings or bean-sauce noodles near the hotel (see the food guide). Simple and early: Beijing kitchens close sooner than you would think. Save the duck for tomorrow — it is a two-hour dinner and tonight you would not enjoy it. Bag ready and alarm at 06:15.
No harm done: nothing today depends on the clock. Transfer, a quick dinner, sleep. The one thing you must do whatever time you arrive is talk to the front desk about tomorrow’s car; if it is too late, book it on Trip.com from the room.
Day 2 · Fri, Sept 4
September average Mutianyu, 500 m — — — days with rain
Beijing Mutianyu
Day car with waiting time · ~1 h 30 each way · 600–900 CNY per car
The day these two Beijing nights exist for. Mutianyu (慕田峪) is ~73 km northeast, a good hour and a half each way: it is the restored stretch, forest all around and without Badaling’s crowds. Do it with a private day car, never a group tour — a coach gets there at 10:30, which is exactly the hour to avoid.
Your plan is specific: chairlift up, toboggan down. That decides the whole day, because chairlift and toboggan share a station and only reach Tower 6. The enclosed cable car —the other lift— goes to Tower 14 and does not connect to the toboggan: anyone going up that way would have to walk back to Tower 6 to sled down.
06:45
Closed shoes with grippy soles (the steps are uneven and very high), water —there is no shade or fountain up there—, a cap, sun cream and a light jacket for the chairlift, which is open-air. Passport on you: the ticket is real-name. A small backpack, because on the toboggan everything must ride on your back with your hands free.
07:15
Car at the hotel door at 07:15, agreed last night. A jianbing breakfast bought on the way or eaten in the car. Confirm three things with the driver: that he drops you at the main gate (P4 / Yingbeigou), that he waits until the afternoon, and exactly where he will pick you up — the car park is big and there are several gates.
08:45
Mutianyu works in three steps, and it helps to know before getting out of the car: 1) car park and ticket offices, at the bottom; 2) a compulsory shuttle that climbs the 1–2 km to the foot of the mountain; 3) the chairlift and cable-car stations, a few minutes’ walk with some steps. None of it can be skipped on foot.
08:50
Ask for three things, in this order: scenic-area admission (~40 CNY), return shuttle (~15 CNY) and «索道上、滑道下» —chairlift up + toboggan down— for ~140 CNY. That is about 195 CNY a head. Show that phrase on your screen and there will be no confusion: it is the exact combination you want.
If they sell you a «缆车» (lǎnchē) that is the enclosed cable car to Tower 14, not the chairlift. Telling them apart is easy: the chairlift is an open two-seat chair and its station is the toboggan’s. Any of the three one-way costs 100 CNY; the combination you want, 140.
09:20 – 09:45
The shuttle drops you at the top; the chairlift is on the left. It is an open two-seat chair: you walk forward, the operator slows it, you sit and the bar comes down. Ten minutes hanging over the forest, and it leaves you at Tower 6. Keep the toboggan stub: you hand it in up there.
09:45 – 12:30
From Tower 6, head towards the higher numbers: 6 → 14 is the easy stretch and the prettiest (30–60 min, with the cable-car station at 14), and 14 → 20 is the serious climb, very high steps up to the highest point of the site. Past Tower 14 the people evaporate. Then you walk the same way back to Tower 6.
Stay between 6 and 14 and forget Tower 20: that is a good two hours there and back, almost flat, and the postcard views are already there. The other direction from Tower 6 —towards the low numbers, 5, 4, 3— is a short and far emptier walk, worth it if you have half an hour spare.
12:30
Back at Tower 6, sit for ten minutes and drink before the toboggan: you go down with your hands busy and it is better not to be exhausted. Put cap, sunglasses and phone inside the backpack, closed, and strap it to you. Take your last photos here: on the sled you do not stop.
13:00
1) Hand in the stub and queue briefly. 2) One sled each, seated with your legs inside the channel. 3) A single lever between your knees: push forward to speed up, pull back to brake. 4) Keep your distance from the sled ahead; close up and the marshal whistles. 5) At the bottom, brake fully before standing up.
1,580 metres of steel channel winding through the trees and about 100 m of drop, in five minutes. It is not a fairground ride: you set the speed, and fully braked it crawls. Under-10s ride with an adult, and it is not advised with heart trouble or high blood pressure.
In rain, snow or strong wind the toboggan does not run, and you come down on the same chairlift. It is the site’s call, taken on the spot, and it can change within the hour — so buy the combination anyway: if it is shut when you reach Tower 6, ask whether they swap the leg or refund it.
13:30 – 14:30
In Mutianyu village, right by the car park: mountain trout and seasonal vegetables. No pretensions and no queue if you come down before 14:00. It is the last unhurried meal before three days of transfers.
15:00 – 16:45
Back to Beijing with time to spare. If the group is still standing, a stop at the Summer Palace (颐和园, ~30–60 CNY) fits on the way in and closes around 18:00–19:00. If not: hotel and shower. Tomorrow starts at the airport, early.
17:15 – 18:30
Only if you come back with energy: Hongqiao market (红桥市场, 9 Tiantan Rd, by the Temple of Heaven, metro line 5), Beijing’s pearl market — four floors, with freshwater pearl on the second. You do not come to buy: you come to collect prices before Canton. It shuts around 19:00.
Haggle for real even if you buy nothing: the opening price is a posture and the norm is to close far below it. Ask to see the same item at three stalls, look at lustre, shape, surface and size, and write the numbers down. That is what stands between you and the tourist price at Liwan in seven days’ time.
19:30
Tonight is the night: Peking duck, with the table booked last night (see the food guide). Order it whole, take two hours over it, and eat early. Before bed, bag closed: tomorrow you leave the hotel at 05:45 and there is no time for anything.
The wall in the rain is wet stone on a slope: genuinely dangerous, and with no toboggan on top of it. With only two nights there is no day to move the Wall to, so the alternative is to swap it for the Summer Palace and the Lama Temple (雍和宫) and accept it. Check the forecast the night before and, if it looks bad, leave even earlier: rain here comes in bursts.
Stage 2 · Day 3 · Night 3 · Sept 5
One night of futuristic city, which is when it lights up
The table
Chongqing does not cook: it sets fire. Beef tallow, dried chilli and Sichuan pepper — málà (麻辣), which burns and numbs at once. Two lifelines: the split pot (鸳鸯锅, yuānyāng) and the word 微辣 (wēilà, "mild").
Chongqing hotpot
重庆火锅 · chóngqìng huǒguō
A beef-tallow broth that never stops boiling. You fish things out and dip them in the yóudié (油碟), sesame oil with garlic, which douses the fire. Classics: 毛肚 (tripe, seven seconds and out), 鸭肠 (duck intestine) and 麻辣牛肉.
Xiaomian
重庆小面 · xiǎomiàn
The city’s breakfast, and your first meal on landing: wheat noodles with a dozen seasonings, peanuts, pickles and a lake of chilli oil. With mushy peas and minced pork it becomes 豌杂面. 8–15 CNY.
Hot-and-sour noodles
酸辣粉 · suānlà fěn
Translucent sweet-potato noodles in a vinegar-and-chilli broth with crushed peanuts. Street food, 10 CNY, eaten standing and not filling: perfect between one viewpoint and the next.
Maoxuewang
毛血旺 · máoxuèwàng
Congealed blood, tripe, pork belly and vegetables in red broth. It sounds odd and tastes exactly like this city. Any Jiefangbei canteen has it.
Laziji chicken
辣子鸡 · làzǐjī
Nuggets of fried chicken buried in a mountain of dried chillies: the game is finding the chicken. You pick at it, you do not spoon it.
Day 3 · Sat, Sept 5
September average Chongqing 28° 22° 52 % days with rain
Pekín (PEK) Chongqing (CKG)
Morning domestic flight · ~3 h · ~19 services a day · leave between 07:00 and 08:30
The trip’s longest hop: 1,450 km southwest on a morning flight. If it leaves on time you are in Jiefangbei by midday with twelve hours of Chongqing ahead — and they are the twelve that matter, because what you came here for switches on at seven in the evening.
Chongqing is the "8D city": thirty million people on a spur between two rivers, where the ground floor depends on which way you arrive and a building opens onto a street on floor 1 and on floor 22. You do not walk it on the flat — you go up and down. Today there are no temples and no museums: there is metro, cableway, viewpoints and light.
05:45
Leave the hotel at 05:45 by taxi (PEK is 45–60 min away and at that hour there is no traffic). For a domestic flight you need to be there two hours ahead: Chinese domestic security is slow and the terminal is huge. You board on your passport, not a printed card.
07:00 – 10:15
The route has ~19 flights a day and takes about 3 h. Fly Air China (the first leaves at 07:00), Hainan, China Southern, Sichuan or Chongqing Airlines, and look for a departure between 07:00 and 08:30: you land between 10:00 and 11:30 and the day stays whole.
Beijing has two airports and they are 70 km and a good hour apart. You land at Capital (PEK) and the hotel will be on that side: buy the departure from PEK. A ticket from Daxing (PKX) may be €30 cheaper and costs you an extra hour’s sleep and a 200 CNY taxi.
10:30 – 12:00
You land at Jiangbei (CKG). Into town, two options: metro line 10 from the terminal itself, change at Hongtudi to line 6 and get off at Xiaoshizi (~50 min, ~7 CNY), or a taxi/DiDi (30–40 min, 55–70 CNY per car). With a cabin bag, the metro wins.
12:00 – 13:15
Drop the bag at the hotel —it does not matter if the room is not ready, they will keep it— and eat a 小面 at any corner (see the food guide): 10 CNY, fifteen minutes, and you are off. Book right now, from the table, two things: the Yangtze cableway and the Raffles viewing deck.
13:30 – 15:00
The image that defines the city: the line 2 monorail enters through the 6th floor of a block of flats and comes out the other side. The Liziba viewing platform (李子坝观景台) is outside the gates and free, with a train every 2–4 minutes. Then get on: the Liziba → Zengjiayan leg hangs over the river for 2 CNY.
15:15 – 16:45
The 长江索道, Xiaoshizi to Shangxinjie: five minutes suspended over the river, ~30 CNY one way, in the slot you booked at lunch on the 重庆索道公司 mini-program — in high season slots sell out 2–3 hours ahead. On the far bank, Longmenhao old street (龙门浩老街, free) and the best head-on view of the skyline.
17:30 – 19:00
At the tip of the peninsula, at Chaotianmen, eight towers joined 250 m up by "The Crystal", a 300 m horizontal walkway. The deck (探索舱) opens 10:00–22:00, last entry 21:15, and costs 120–128 CNY booked online. Go up an hour before sunset and watch both rivers light up from above.
19:15 – 20:30
洪崖洞: eleven floors of mock stilt houses hung off the cliff and lit from around 19:00. It is free, but in high season you need a timed slot via mini-program. The photo is taken from Qiansimen bridge (千厮门大桥), five minutes away on foot; the impact, from below on Cangbai Lu. The lights go out around 22:00.
21:00
And here the calendar is on your side: today is a Saturday, and from May to September Chongqing runs a drone show at 21:00 on Saturdays over the confluence of the Yangtze and the Jialing. It is free from Chaotianmen square, ten minutes on foot from Hongyadong. Be there by 20:40, and confirm at the front desk in the morning: wind or rain cancels it.
21:45
A late dinner, which is the local hour. Order 鸳鸯锅 —the split pot— if anyone cannot take chilli, and see the food guide for what to order. With a table booked by the hotel you skip the hour-long queue.
The order of sacrifice is this: first Longmenhao, then the cableway, then Liziba. What you do not touch is the block from 17:30 on —Raffles, Hongyadong and the drones— because that is exactly what you came for, and it all falls into four consecutive hours ten minutes apart on foot.
Rain does not spoil this city: it improves it. The Raffles deck is indoors and glazed, Hongyadong from the inside is a mall with a view, and the cableway runs regardless. The only casualty is the drones. Add Shancheng Alley (山城巷) or the Shibati staircases (十八梯) if the afternoon has room.
Stage 3 · Days 4–5 · Nights 4–5 · Sept 6–7
Only the mountain with a gate to the sky: the park of the pillars stays out
The table
Here you eat Tujia, the cooking of the western Hunan mountains: smoked, sour and hot, but a different heat from Chongqing’s — fresh chilli, not tallow. It all turns around the wood fire and the pickling jar.
Three-in-one pot
三下锅 · sānxiàguō
The Zhangjiajie dish: three ingredients stir-fried together in a dry pot on the table —tripe, pork belly, chicken, mushroom or potato, as you choose— and from there you can add broth and turn it into a hotpot.
Tujia smoked bacon
腊肉 · làròu
Pork belly cured and smoked for months hanging over the stove. Stir-fried with green garlic or bamboo shoots, it underpins half the region’s menu.
Fish in sour broth
酸汤鱼 · suāntāng yú
A fermented tomato-and-rice broth, sour and light, with river fish. The perfect counterweight after the hotpot night in Chongqing.
Blood tofu
血豆腐 · xuè dòufu
Tofu mixed with pig’s blood, pressed and smoked until dark and firm. Sliced and stir-fried. It sounds worse than it tastes.
Hunan rice noodles
米粉 · mǐfěn
The whole province’s breakfast: rice noodles in broth, stewed meat on top and a spoonful of pickles. 10–15 CNY, open from six — breakfast on mountain day.
Day 4 · Sun, Sept 6 T1
September average Zhangjiajie — — — days with rain
T1 Chongqing East Zhangjiajie West
target: an early-afternoon departure · 2 h 02 – 3 h · more than 10 a day · from 190–222 CNY in second class
The leg the new line has changed completely: since the Chongqing–Qianjiang high-speed railway opened in June 2025, this journey went from six hours to a little over two. That hands you a whole Chongqing morning that did not exist a year ago.
08:30 – 11:00
No museums and no going off script: the Crown escalator (皇冠大扶梯, Lianglukou), 112 metres in one run for 2 CNY, and Baixiangju (白象居), the 1980s housing block with mid-height walkways over the Yangtze that shows up in every cyberpunk photo of the city. Both walkable or one metro stop away.
11:30 – 12:30
Mind the station: the fast trains to Zhangjiajie leave from Chongqing East (重庆东站), opened in June 2025 out at Chayuan — not Chongqing West and not Chongqing North. Metro line 6 runs there directly from Xiaoshizi. Be there 40 minutes early: it is a huge, brand-new station.
13:00 – 15:15
485 km of canyons and tunnels, with more than ten departures a day and from 190–222 CNY in second class. The fastest does it in 2 h 02; the ones with more stops, 3 h. Look for an early-afternoon departure so you arrive in daylight. You get off at Zhangjiajie West (张家界西).
15:30 – 16:15
Zhangjiajie West is ~10 km from the centre and it is not the old station: taxi or DiDi, 20 minutes and 40–60 CNY. Ask for a hotel near the cable-car base station, right in the centre by the old railway station — tomorrow you leave on foot, and that is worth half an hour in bed.
16:30 – 18:00
The day’s one errand, and it cannot wait: buy tomorrow’s Tianmen ticket if it is not bought —it is real-name, timed and capped— and, at that same counter or at the front desk, ask which lifts are running today. The mountain has been under works since 2025 and the state of the cableway changes tomorrow’s whole plan.
18:00 – 19:30
A walk down Xibu old street (溪布老街), by the river, which is where the town has dinner: lanterns, stalls and bars. It is not a real old town —that is tomorrow, in Furong— but it fills the evening without taking a car.
The trip’s first 三下锅 (see the food guide) and an early night: tomorrow starts early and involves hours of steps. Get the mountain bag ready: water, fruit, windproof and a power bank.
With ten services a day it is easy to adjust, but if the only slot is an afternoon one, the Chongqing morning goes, not the mountain. The one thing you cannot lose is arriving in time to buy the Tianmen ticket: if you get in after dark, buy it online from the train.
Day 5 · Mon, Sept 7
September average Tianmen, 1,518 m — — — days with rain — gusts — feels like
The whole mountain is one day and it fits comfortably. Up at 1,518 m there is a ring of walkways bolted to the cliff that you walk without difficulty; halfway up, Heaven’s Gate (天门洞), a natural arch 131 m high punched through the rock. And there are three different routes on sale to get there — the good one starts in the middle of the city.
Because the first thing about this mountain is not the mountain: it is the longest cableway in the world. 7,455 metres and 1,279 m of climb in 28 minutes, starting right in the city centre, ten minutes on foot from the hotel. It is not transport with a view: it is half the visit, and that is why the recommended route is the one that includes it.
Of the three on sale (A, B and C), buy Line A (A线): it is the one that goes up on the big cableway from the city and then crosses the 99-bend road, the mountain’s two spectacles, one after the other. It is around 285 CNY an adult (it has ranged from 275 to 298 by season; under-14s free) and covers cableways, mountain bus and the through-mountain escalators.
Know this before you go up: the upper section (middle station → summit) has been closed for works since 6 November 2025, with no published reopening date. Today the big cableway takes you from the city to the middle station, and there you change to the bus. You still ride it, which was the point, but the last third is not running.
The ticket includes the seven escalators that tunnel through the mountain (穿山自动扶梯, 692 m of run) between Heaven’s Gate and the summit. What it does not include is the bottom stretch: from the plaza to the Gate there are 999 steps or a five-section escalator for 32 CNY. Ask for it: that is precisely the climb you do not want. Going down is free.
Nobody sells the big cableway as a return, not even with the works finished: by design it appears once in each route —going up on A, coming down on B— and the other half is done by the 99-bend bus or the express cableway. Choosing A means accepting the bus, and that bus is half the reason to come.
07:45
The ticket office opens at 07:30 and the first boarding is at 08:00. Walk from the hotel to the cable-car base station, next to the old railway station, and turn up half an hour before your slot with your passport: the ticket is real-name and there is a queue even with a booked time.
08:15 – 08:45
Eight-seat cabins that leave the city and within a minute are over the rooftops, then the forest, then thin air. Sit facing backwards for the first stretch —the whole city opens up— and forwards after that, when the wall appears. You get off at the middle station (中站).
09:00 – 09:40
At the middle station you change to the scenic-area bus, included, which climbs the 通天大道: 10.77 km, nearly 1,000 m of climb and 99 hairpins carved into the cliff. It is what you see from above in every photograph of this mountain, and doing it from the inside is the day’s other half. Sit on the right going up.
Forty minutes of hairpin after hairpin makes people sick who never get sick. If anyone is prone: a tablet half an hour before (the hotel will have them), a front seat, the window, and no looking at your phone. And a light breakfast — the street 米粉, nothing more.
09:45 – 10:15
The bus stops at the plaza, and from there the 32 CNY escalator climbs in five sections to the foot of the arch. This is the place to stop for a while: 131 metres of hole through the mountain with sky behind it. From the threshold you can see, below, the bends you have just come up.
10:15 – 10:45
And now the part already paid for: seven escalators chained together inside the rock, 692 metres of lit tunnel, delivering you straight to the hanging garden at the summit. Half an hour without a single step uphill. Put your jacket on before you come out: up there it can be 10–12 °C colder than in town.
10:45 – 13:15
The loop you want is the west line (西线): 2.8 almost flat kilometres, an hour and a half, with the Guigu cliff path bolted to the rock, the suspension bridge and the valley views. It is signed one-way, there are open-air escalators for the height changes, and you cannot get lost: you come out where you went in.
Three sections of the ring have a glass floor over the drop and you must wear shoe covers: 5 CNY per section, paid on the spot. Anyone with vertigo can go round them on the ordinary path without missing any of the route — it is the summit’s only optional part.
The east line (东线) is 3.7 km and two and a half hours, with more steps and far fewer people. Only if you are doing well for time and legs. And there is an extra: a forest chairlift (25 CNY one way) up to Yunmeng Xianding, the mountain’s highest point.
13:15 – 13:50
There are canteens at the summit, expensive and mediocre. As the food guide says: bring fruit and nuts up with you, eat something light looking at the valley, and save your appetite for tonight’s 三下锅.
14:00 – 15:30
Line A does not go back the way it came: down the through-mountain escalators (included), the Gate escalator free in the downward direction, and from the plaza the Heaven’s Gate express cableway —back in service on 20 March 2026— down to the 山门, where the free shuttle waits to take you into town. Start down at 14:00 and you have time to spare.
Same mountain, reversed order: shuttle, express cableway, escalators, summit, bus down the 99 bends and the big cableway back, landing right in the city centre late in the day. You gain better light on the star leg and a shorter queue —the downward one always is— and you lose doing it fresh. If the slot you are given is an afternoon one, switch to this.
The one that avoids the 99 bends: express cableway both ways, escalators and summit, without boarding a single mountain bus. It goes without the big cableway, so it only makes sense if someone really does get carsick or if the site suspends the bus. Same price and same summit.
16:00 – 19:00
The shuttle drops you in the centre. A free afternoon, feet up, and bags packed tonight: tomorrow’s train to Furong is short but mid-morning, and the day after that the serious half of the trip begins.
In thick fog you see nothing from the cableway, which is precisely what you came to do. It is the trip’s one plan with a spare day: swap it for tomorrow and push the Furong train back a few hours —there are several short services. Check the forecast at bedtime and decide at seven.
Stage 4 · Day 6 · Night 6 · Sept 8
Two thousand years of Tujia houses hung off a waterfall, and one night to have them empty
The table
A one-dish town, and for good reason: the 1986 film that gave it its name is about exactly that — a woman selling midoufu in this square. Today half the street sells it, and it still costs what it did then: a few yuan.
Midoufu (rice tofu)
米豆腐 · mǐdòufu
It is not tofu: it is a rice curd, cool and wobbly, cut into cubes and drowned in chilli broth with peanuts, spring onion and pickles. Eaten cold, and it is the town’s dish. 8–15 CNY.
Duck with blood cake
血粑鸭 · xuèbā yā
Western Hunan’s serious dish: duck stir-fried with cubes of glutinous rice set in blood, chilli and ginger. Heavy, smoky and very hot.
You River fish
酉水鱼 · yǒushuǐ yú
River fish stewed in sour broth or grilled, on the terraces over the water. It is what to have for dinner here: the whole town faces the river.
Day 6 · Tue, Sept 8 T2
September average Furong — — — days with rain
T2 Zhangjiajie West Furongzhen
target: mid-morning · ~30 min · few services · low
The trip’s shortest and most rewarding hop: half an hour by train and you land in a two-thousand-year-old Tujia town built on top of a waterfall. It was called Wangcun until a 1986 film gave it the name it has now, and ever since it has billed itself as "the millennial town hung from a waterfall".
The point of sleeping here is simple: the day coaches leave at six and the town empties. What one night buys you is having it to yourselves after dark and at dawn, which is when it looks like what it once was.
09:30 – 11:30
A mid-morning train from Zhangjiajie West to Furongzhen (芙蓉镇), on the new western-Hunan high-speed line. The station is ~20 min by taxi from the old town (40–60 CNY). Mind the luggage: no cars get inside and there are steps — drop the bags at the hotel first.
11:45
Paid at the gate and it never sells out: 100 CNY for the old town, 148 CNY for the combined ticket that adds the waterfall enclosure and the Tujia monuments. Over-65s go free with ID. The site is open 07:30 to 23:00, so the night is included in your ticket.
12:00 – 13:30
Lunch on the main street: 米豆腐, the rice tofu that made the place famous (see the food guide). This is the busiest hour of the day —the coaches arrive at eleven and leave at five— so it is the right hour to eat and the wrong one to wander.
13:30 – 16:00
The town is built on top of the falls —60 m high and 40 wide, in two drops, the biggest in western Hunan— and the good path runs behind the curtain of water. You come out wet and it is worth it: keep your phone away and bring something to dry off with.
16:00 – 17:30
The five-mile street (五里长街) drops to the You River jetty between 吊脚楼, the Tujia houses on wooden stilts. On the way are the tusi chieftain’s square, the bronze pillar and the local king’s palace — all inside the combined ticket.
You are in Xiangxi, Miao and Tujia country, and worked silver is the local craft: headdresses, collars and filigree. For the business this is not a supplier —it is artisan work at tourist-town prices— but it is the trip’s best place to see traditional design and photograph models. Buying by weight happens in Canton, three days from now.
17:30 – 19:00
The best hour, and the reason for the night: the groups leave, the light drops and the lanterns come on over the water. The same lanes as three hours ago, with nobody in them. Walk the upper stretch again: it is a different place.
19:00 – 21:00
You River fish on a terrace, then an early night: kitchens close around 21:00. In high season there is a Tujia evening show inside the town — bought at the gate, no need to book it from Spain.
Tomorrow is the trip’s longest transfer and there is a single morning service: it leaves Furongzhen around 10:07 and reaches Canton at 15:30. That means leaving town at 08:45, with the taxi ordered at the desk tonight. Bags packed before bed.
Today’s is short and infrequent, so it sells out fast. Plan B: a taxi or private car from Zhangjiajie, about 2 h on mountain roads and 400–600 CNY per car. Workable, but it costs you the quiet afternoon, which is exactly what you came for.
Stage 5 · Days 7–9 · Nights 7–9 · Sept 9–11
The reason for the trip: pearl, silver and a supplier you can reorder from
The table
Here you eat what half of Europe calls "Chinese food", except real and at home: steam, broth and produce, without a single chilli. The local institution is 早茶 (zǎochá), the two-hour trolley breakfast where, incidentally, this city closes its deals.
Morning dim sum
早茶 · zǎochá
From 07:00 to 11:00. Order 虾饺 (translucent prawn dumplings), 烧卖, 叉烧包 and 凤爪. You tick a sheet, order little and order again. The tea is not a courtesy: it is charged per head and refilled endlessly.
Steamed rice rolls
肠粉 · chángfěn
Paper-thin rice sheets steamed on cloth, rolled around prawn, beef or egg and bathed in sweet soy. A street-corner breakfast, 10–20 CNY, and the best cheap dish in the city.
Roast goose and pork
烧腊 · shāolà
The roast window: 烧鹅 (lacquered goose with crackling skin) and 叉烧 (honeyed pork). Order a quarter over rice and eat it in five minutes, standing or sitting.
White cut chicken
白切鸡 · báiqiē jī
Chicken poached and served warm with a ginger-and-spring-onion sauce. No colour and no tricks: it is the dish a cook is judged on here.
Clay pot rice
煲仔饭 · bāozǎi fàn
Rice cooked in a clay pot with Chinese sausage, ribs or chicken until the base toasts and crackles. A winter dinner eaten here all year. It takes 20 minutes: order it and wait.
Double-skin milk
双皮奶 · shuāngpí nǎi
The regional pudding: buffalo milk set twice, warm or cold, with the texture of a very fine custard. 10–15 CNY and it is on every street.
Day 7 · Wed, Sept 9 T3
September average Canton — — — days with rain
T3 Furongzhen Guangzhou South
target: G6151, 10:07 → 15:30 · ~5 h 25 · 972 km · one morning service and four afternoon ones · ~514 CNY in second class
The trip’s long transfer, and the one that separates its two halves: 5 h 25 of direct high-speed rail, no changes, from a Hunan mountain village to a nineteen-million megacity on the Pearl River. You leave with mist in the valley and arrive to 31 °C and 75% humidity.
From here the trip stops being sightseeing. Canton’s three nights are the two market days —Thursday and Friday, the two best days of the week for this— plus Saturday morning to collect, pay and ship.
08:45 – 09:30
Leave town at 08:45 with the taxi ordered last night: it is 20 minutes to Furongzhen and you must be there 40 minutes ahead. It is a small station and security is quick, but there is no other good departure all day.
10:07 – 15:30
The G6151 leaves Furongzhen around 10:07 and reaches Guangzhou South (广州南) at 15:30: 972 km, ~514 CNY in second class. Eat on board —there is a trolley and hot water— and use the five hours to go over the Beijing prices and decide what gets bought tomorrow. You arrive with the afternoon intact.
15:30 – 16:45
Guangzhou South is 17 km from the centre and one of Asia’s largest stations: allow 15 minutes just to walk out. Metro line 2 to Gongyuanqian, change to line 1 for Changshou Lu (长寿路): ~40 min and 8 CNY. By taxi, 40–50 min and 120–150 CNY in afternoon traffic.
The Canton hotel is not a matter of taste, it is a working decision: the Changshou Lu / Shangxiajiu area, in Liwan. From there the market is ten minutes on foot, you can drop purchases at the hotel at midday, and you have breakfast in the old dim sum houses. Any other district is 40 minutes of metro every morning.
17:00 – 18:45
Go to Liwan Plaza (荔湾广场) today to buy nothing. In an hour and a half you can walk the whole building up and down to learn what is on each floor, where the pearl stalls are and when the wholesale floors shut. Tomorrow, knowing that, you walk in to work instead of to get your bearings.
18:45 – 19:30
On the way out, the Shangxiajiu pedestrian street (上下九), with its qilou —the arcaded colonial fronts of the south— and, two streets on, Yongqingfang (永庆坊), the restored old quarter. It is the only sightseeing walk of these three days, and this one is enough.
19:30 – 21:30
Roast goose and clay-pot rice after four days of chilli (see the food guide). And one five-minute errand before bed: write to your customs agent in Spain with what you intend to buy. You want their answer on Friday, not at the airport.
There are four more direct trains, all in the afternoon: 15:10, 15:35, 17:23 and 18:10, arriving between 20:50 and 23:45. With any of them this day becomes pure transfer and the Liwan recon moves to tomorrow morning. Nothing irreparable is lost, but an afternoon is.
Day 8 · Thu, Sept 10
September average Canton — — — days with rain
Liwan Plaza (荔湾广场) is Canton’s largest wholesale market for jewellery, gemstones, pearl and beads: more than 1,500 stalls over eight floors, all in one building and all ten minutes from your hotel. Today is the long day, and today the pearl rules.
The day has one rule: nothing is closed before you have seen the same thing at three stalls. Look, note, photograph, come back. Here the first price always assumes bargaining, and whoever buys at their first stop pays a tourist price even on the wholesale floor.
07:30 – 09:15
Trolley dim sum at 莲香楼 or 陶陶居, on Shangxiajiu (see the food guide). This is not sightseeing: it is the hour at which this city thinks through its day, and with the market opening at 10:00 there is nothing better to do first.
Liwan does not open all at once. Most stalls run 10:00 to 22:00, but the wholesale floors upstairs shut at 18:00, and the bead basement (B2) fills up first: if you are after components, get in there before 11:00. The good working window is 10:00–12:00 on weekdays.
10:00 – 12:30
The third floor is the heart of the pearl trade: freshwater and cultured, in every grade, loose or mounted, and the best vendors are in the north-east corner. Start high —where it is dearer and better— to calibrate the ceiling, then work down: that way the eye compares downwards, not the other way round.
Never by the piece: by the strand and by the lot. A wholesale pearl order moves between 20 and 100 strands per model, and the price shifts with size and grade. Bargain from 30% of the first number they say, and pay cash where you can — the cash discount is real and it is not small.
Rub two pearls together: a good one feels faintly gritty, an imitation slides. Then look in this order: lustre (if you see yourself reflected, it is good), shape, surface (marks and pits) and size. Distrust a certificate produced from a drawer: what counts here is a physical sample of the lot.
12:30 – 13:45
Leave the building to eat, even if you would rather not: two hours without daylight and without sitting down catch up with you in the afternoon. Roast meats or changfen on Shangxiajiu, twenty minutes, and back in.
14:00 – 16:00
Silver is spread over three levels: 1F, ready-made 925 and fashion pieces to resell as they are; 2F, silver, components and rough stone; B2, chain, clasps, stringing and beads by the kilo. Silver components are priced by weight, per gram, and many stalls ask a minimum order of ~3,000 CNY.
16:15 – 17:30
Three minutes away, Hualin jade street (华林玉器街): 500 metres of shops, open 08:00 to 22:00, through which 90% of the city’s jade trade passes. What matters to you is not the jade: it is that the street itself holds the official Guangdong assay centre, where you get a piece verified before closing a large order.
Three things, and if one is missing the day is not finished: 1) prices written down by size and grade, with a photo of every lot; 2) a physical sample of the exact lot they will ship you, not a similar one; 3) the seller’s WeChat. The supplier who fills the second order is worth more than the discount on the first.
19:30
Eat early and spend half an hour with the numbers: what gets closed tomorrow, at what price and with whom. Tomorrow is Friday, the last working day for factories, and turning up without the list means looking again instead of buying.
Day 9 · Fri, Sept 11
September average Canton — — — days with rain
Friday, and the trip’s last working day for anything depending on a factory, a bank or a freight forwarder. Today you close: quantities fixed, deposits paid, deadlines agreed and a decision on how the goods leave China. Tomorrow is only collection.
The day’s question is how much silver you need. If it is assorted and in normal quantities, it is all solved in Liwan and the streets beside it. If you need volume or made-to-order production, you have to go to Panyu — and that is half a day of metro and industrial estate.
A morning closing in Liwan: back to yesterday’s three or four stalls with the list ready, negotiate the full lot and pay. With the order closed before lunch, the afternoon is free for what is missing: findings, displays and packaging.
14:30 – 17:30
Two addresses, both a short metro ride: Yide Lu (一德路, line 6, Haizhu Square) for cases, pouches and packaging at wholesale prices, and the Taikang / Yangzhong area in Yuexiu, four floors and over 500 stalls of fashion jewellery and accessories, many with no minimum per design. That completes the catalogue without a second trip to China.
The Panyu district makes 60% of China’s jewellery, and its core is Daluotang (大罗塘珠宝小镇): 1.75 km² and more than 2,000 companies in manufacturing, setting and sales, silver by weight included. Metro line 3 to Shiqiao, exit D, some 45–60 min from Liwan.
It is an industrial estate: units, offices and workshops, not aisles of stalls. Whoever turns up without an appointment and without a contact is shown very little. The way to make it work is to arrive with a contact from yesterday —many Liwan sellers are the sales front of a factory here— and ask them to take you. Without that, Option A is better.
17:00 – 18:00
The trip’s most expensive decision, and it has to be taken today. You fly with 0 checked bags and 12 kg of cabin baggage: the purchase does not fit. Two ways out: add checked baggage to the return KL0896 (far cheaper online than at the desk) or ship it with a freight forwarder. Canton is full of them and many sellers have their own.
Four things, in writing and over WeChat: door-to-door or to customs only, real lead time (air 5–10 days, sea 35–50), who pays VAT and duty on arrival, and what paperwork they issue. Cross-check it with your agent in Spain: goods for resale are not personal luggage, and that difference is paid at the destination customs.
19:30
Roast goose and double-skin milk, which is how it ends here (see the food guide). And the final check: invoices kept and photographed, samples separated from the rest, and confirmed with each seller what time you collect tomorrow. On Saturday the city moves more slowly.
Stage 6 · Days 10–14 · Nights 10–13 · Sept 12–15
The reward: four nights to rest, shop and be looked after
The table
Shanghai cooks sweet and with dark soy — běnbāng cài (本帮菜), the cooking "of this house". It is the mildest of the trip and the best closing act: dough, sugar, black vinegar and a lot of steam.
Xiaolongbao
小笼包 · xiǎolóngbāo
The dumpling with soup inside. Bite a corner, sip the broth, then eat it — in one mouthful you scald your palate. With black vinegar and shredded ginger.
Shengjianbao
生煎包 · shēngjiānbāo
Its pan-fried brother: a leavened bun with a crisp fried base, sesame and spring onion on top, and broth inside all the same. A street-corner breakfast, 8–15 CNY for four.
Red braised pork
红烧肉 · hóngshāo ròu
Pork belly cooked for hours in soy, rock sugar and rice wine until lacquered and wobbly. The dish that defines the local kitchen: sweet, dark and entirely unembarrassed.
Scallion oil noodles
葱油拌面 · cōngyóu bànmiàn
Four ingredients: noodles, spring onion confited in oil, soy and sugar. The cheapest and most Shanghainese thing there is.
Hairy crab
大闸蟹 · dàzháxiè
The city’s seasonal obsession — but its season starts in late September and you leave on the 16th. What you can get mid-month: dishes with crab roe (蟹粉), which give you the same idea.
Day 10 · Sat, Sept 12
September average Shanghai 28° 22° 53 % days with rain
Canton (CAN) Shanghai (SHA/PVG)
Afternoon flight · ~2 h 20 · ~39 direct services a day · alternative: a 6 h 30 – 8 h train
Half a working day and half a transfer. In the morning you collect and dispatch what you bought; at midday, the airport; and by mid-afternoon you land at the trip’s last stop — the one that took four of the thirteen nights because it is where you are meant to stop.
09:30 – 12:00
Back to Liwan at the times agreed yesterday: you collect, weigh, count and pay. No starting to look at new things — today there is no slack. If it goes by forwarder, the goods are handed over today, with the invoices photographed before you let them go.
12:30 – 13:30
Baiyun (CAN) is north of the city. Metro line 3, north branch from the centre (~1 h, 10 CNY) or a taxi (40–60 min, 130–160 CNY per car). For a domestic flight, two hours ahead. If you are carrying pieces with you, they ride in the cabin bag, not checked.
15:00 – 17:20
One of China’s densest air corridors: ~39 direct flights a day, 06:55 to 22:00, and 2 h 20 in the air, with China Southern, China Eastern, Juneyao, Air China and Spring. Fly into Hongqiao (SHA) if you get to choose: it is on the same side of the city as your hotel.
If you are genuinely loaded, the train wins: Guangzhou South → Shanghai Hongqiao in 6 h 30 – 8 h, no baggage limit, nothing to check and city centre to city centre. It costs a whole day of Shanghai’s four, so it only pays if the load will not fit the airline allowance and you would rather not pay a forwarder.
17:30 – 19:00
From Hongqiao into town, metro line 2 or 10, ~40 min. Pick a hotel in Puxi near line 2: it is the line that crosses the city and links both airports, and on Wednesday you have to be at Pudong by 08:15. The Bund, Nanjing East or the French Concession.
19:30 – 22:00
The image that opens and closes these four days: the row of 1920s buildings on one side and the Pudong skyscrapers on the other, lit until 22:00–23:00. Free from the raised promenade, and packed — one of the few times the crowd is part of the place.
Five minutes at the front desk that change the next three days: book two sessions now —a foot treatment for Sunday and a long oil or tui na one for Monday— and one good dinner for Tuesday. In Shanghai the good places fill up, and arriving here to improvise costs you half the rest.
Day 11 · Sun, Sept 13
September average Shanghai 28° 22° 53 % days with rain
First full day, and the only one on a timetable. The reason is specific: in the afternoon you order the made-to-measure clothes, and a suit or a qipao needs two or three days between fitting and delivery. Ordering today means having it on Tuesday; ordering tomorrow means not having it.
08:30 – 10:30
The Yu Garden (豫园, ~40 CNY), from 1559: rockeries, ponds and courtyards wedged into the centre. Go in at opening time, because by eleven the bazaar outside is impassable. The bazaar is pure souvenir, but the Huxinting teahouse, in the middle of the pond, is worth the stop.
11:00 – 12:30
On foot from Yuyuan. By day you see what the night hides: the row of 1920s banks and shipping houses with their lobbies open — number 12, the old HSBC, has a mosaic dome you can see just by walking in, for nothing.
12:30 – 14:00
Xiaolongbao and scallion noodles two streets inland from the Bund (see the food guide). Nothing heavy: the afternoon is spent on your feet choosing fabric.
14:30 – 17:00
South Bund Fabric Market (399 Lujiabang Rd): four floors of tailors and cloth, ten minutes away by taxi. A bespoke suit from ~2,000 CNY, a silk qipao from 1,000–1,500, and silk by the metre from people who have been there twenty years. It is the best-value purchase of the whole trip.
Bring a photo of what you want, not a description. Feel the cloth before choosing and ask what it is made of. And get three things written on the receipt: the agreed price, the day and time of the fitting and the delivery date. Half now and half on collection, never everything up front.
17:30 – 19:00
What you have needed for ten days: a foot and leg massage (足疗), one hour, 150–220 CNY at a neighbourhood place. Look for a house of blind masseurs —the local tradition, and the best hands in the city— around the French Concession. Booked last night through the hotel.
19:30 – 22:00
An unhurried dinner around Xintiandi (新天地), the brick shikumen houses turned into terraces, or Tianzifang (田子坊) if you fancy alleys and stalls. Both are a step from line 10 and both hold up in the rain.
The day barely changes: Yuyuan holds up fine with an umbrella, the fabric market is indoors and its four floors can absorb the whole afternoon, and the massage is better in the rain. The only thing that gets wet is the Bund, and you saw the Bund last night.
Day 12 · Mon, Sept 14
September average Shanghai 28° 22° 53 % days with rain
The day for buying for yourselves, not for the business. And it falls on a Monday, which in Shanghai is the worst day for museums —they close— and the best for shops: the streets are empty compared with Sunday and there is no queue for the fitting rooms.
10:00 – 12:30
Nanjing Xi Lu is China’s expensive street: over 1,200 brands, with the Plaza 66 and Reel malls facing each other. And in the side streets are the old houses of silk, tea and jade, which is where to buy what genuinely does not exist in Europe.
12:30 – 14:00
Both malls have a decent restaurant floor with air conditioning, which in mid-September is no small thing. Eating here saves a journey and leaves the whole afternoon for walking.
14:00 – 17:00
The city’s best walk, and it has no ticket: Wukang Lu, Anfu Lu and Fuxing Lu, with plane trees, brick houses, local designer shops and cafés. The corner of the Wukang Building (武康大楼), from 1924, is the photograph everyone takes home from here.
Two more stops on the same axis: Zhang Yuan (张园), the restored shikumen quarter turned luxury street, and IAPM on Huaihai Middle Road (South Shaanxi Rd metro, lines 1, 10 and 12), which stays open late. Both are ten minutes on foot from the Concession walk.
17:30 – 19:30
Today the real one: a full-body oil or tui na massage, 90 minutes, from about 260 CNY. If you want the genuinely local version, ask for cupping (拔罐) or moxibustion (艾灸) at a traditional-medicine house — they leave round marks for a few days, fair warning.
Red braised pork and shengjianbao anywhere two streets inland (see the food guide). No restaurant with a view: that is tomorrow, the last night.
Day 13 · Tue, Sept 15
September average Shanghai 28° 22° 53 % days with rain
The last full day, and it is built the other way round from the rest: the compulsory part first —collecting the clothes— and the optional part after. Whatever is left over gets decided on the hoof, which after thirteen days is exactly what is needed.
09:30 – 11:00
Back to the fabric market to try on and collect. Try it right there, in front of the tailor, and if something does not sit right, say so on the spot: an adjustment takes an hour, but only while you are still in the shop. You pay the second half on the way out.
11:30 – 13:30
Cross the river on line 2. The Shanghai Tower (上海中心, 632 m) has its deck on floor 118 and the world’s fastest lift; ~180 CNY, best bought online and at midday, when the queue is shortest. In haze, do not go up: you see nothing and it costs the same.
Today is Tuesday and the Shanghai Museum is open (Mondays it is not). The original, on People’s Square, is free and first-rate —bronzes, ceramics and calligraphy—; the new one, Shanghai Museum East, is in Pudong and enormous. A good hour covers the essentials of either.
If you would rather leave the city, Zhujiajiao (朱家角) is an hour away on metro line 17: canals, stone bridges and Ming houses, walked in three hours. It is the only excursion that fits into these four days, and it only fits today.
15:00 – 18:00
A last treatment if the body asks for it, whatever odd purchases got noted yesterday, and nothing else. This gap is here on purpose: it is the whole trip’s buffer, and if it is not needed, it gets spent on a terrace.
19:30 – 22:30
The good one, booked on Saturday. And on the way back, the Bund again: it is the real last night and this view does not tire. Before bed, bag packed and the transfer decided — tomorrow you leave the hotel at 07:00 and there is no room for anything.
Day 14 · Wed, Sept 16
September average Shanghai 28° 22° 53 % days with rain
Shanghái (PVG) Ámsterdam (AMS)
KL0896 · Sept 16, 11:15 → 19:10 · Economy, booking class G
Ámsterdam (AMS) Valencia (VLC)
KL1535 · Sept 16, 20:35 → 23:00 · Economy, booking class L
The KL0896 leaves Pudong at 11:15, so today is not a day: it is a transfer. With three hours ahead for an international flight you need to be at the airport by 08:15 — and Pudong is 45 km from the centre.
07:00
Check out at 07:00 at the latest, with the bag closed the night before. A shengjianbao breakfast at any corner on the way to the metro, or at the airport itself — by then the city is up and the stalls have been open since six.
07:15 – 08:15
Metro to Longyang Lu and then the maglev: 30 km in 7–8 minutes at 300 km/h, ~50 CNY. The fastest transfer and, incidentally, the most fun. Alternatives: metro line 2 all the way (a good hour with a change) or a taxi (~200 CNY, an hour in weekday traffic).
A warning to save you half an hour: the departure tax refund only applies to purchases made in accredited stores (退税商店), with the form issued by the shop itself. Anything bought at a market stall does not qualify. If a Shanghai shop did give you the form, that one is processed before security.
You land at Schiphol at 19:10 and the KL1535 leaves at 20:35: 1 h 25, with passport control in between. It is tight but enough, and it is all one ticket — if the long flight runs late, KLM rebooks you. Walk fast and skip the shop.
How the trip moves
Three trains, and only one of them delicate. In China tickets go on sale 15 days ahead, so by now all three are open: buy them today, on 12306 or Trip.com, with your passport number. The times below are the line’s real ones; the train number is confirmed when you buy.
Chongqing East (重庆东), out at Chayuan, opened June 2025 and served by metro line 6 — it is not Chongqing West and not Chongqing North · Zhangjiajie West (张家界西), ~10 km from the centre, a 20 min taxi
Zhangjiajie West (张家界西) · Furongzhen (芙蓉镇), ~20 min by taxi from the old town
Furongzhen (芙蓉镇), small and quick through security · Guangzhou South (广州南), 17 km from the centre and vast: allow 15 min just to walk out, then metro lines 2 or 7
| Day | Leg | How | Duration | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fri, Sept 4 Day 2 | Beijing → Mutianyu (day car) | Agreed at the front desk the night before; driver waiting all day, leaving at 07:15, price agreed in writing and paid at the end | ~1 h 30 each way | 600–900 CNY/car |
| Sat, Sept 5 Day 3 | Chongqing airport (CKG) → Jiefangbei | Metro line 10 from the terminal, change at Hongtudi to line 6 and off at Xiaoshizi; or a door-to-door taxi/DiDi | ~50 min by metro / 30–40 min by taxi | ~7 CNY by metro / 55–70 CNY by taxi |
| Sun, Sept 6 Day 4 | Zhangjiajie West stn. → centre | Taxi or DiDi; the new station is ~10 km out of town | ~20 min | ~40–60 CNY |
| Tue, Sept 8 Day 6 | Furongzhen stn. → old town | Taxi to the town gate; no cars inside and there are steps | ~20 min | ~40–60 CNY |
| Wed, Sept 9 Day 7 | Guangzhou South stn. → Liwan | Metro line 2 to Gongyuanqian and line 1 to Changshou Lu, which leaves the market a 10 min walk away; by taxi, in afternoon traffic | ~40 min by metro / 40–50 min by taxi | ~8 CNY by metro / 120–150 CNY by taxi |
| Sat, Sept 12 Day 10 | Liwan → Baiyun airport (CAN) | Metro line 3, north branch, or a taxi. For a domestic flight you need two hours ahead; leave Liwan at 12:30 for a 15:00 departure | ~1 h by metro / 40–60 min by taxi | ~10 CNY by metro / 130–160 CNY by taxi |
| Wed, Sept 16 Day 14 | Shanghai → Pudong airport | Metro to Longyang Lu and then the maglev (7–8 min at 300 km/h); alternatively line 2 all the way, or a taxi. Leave the hotel at 07:00 to be there by 08:15 | 8 min – 1 h depending on how | ~7–50 CNY (taxi ~200) |
What to buy, and when
Ordered by date, not by importance: what is on top comes first. The header block holds everything that can and should be done today — the international flights are bought and all three trains are on sale, because in China tickets open 15 days ahead of travel. What is urgent now is the T3 to Canton (a single morning service), the domestic flight to Chongqing, the hotels, and deciding how the goods travel home. Tickets are booked with a foreign passport on 12306 or Trip.com and the name must match exactly; if a train sells out there is an official waiting list. Tick each box as you book — it stays saved in this browser.
Without this you cannot buy a train or pay a taxi. 12306 or Trip.com with a verified passport and the name matching letter by letter; Alipay and WeChat Pay with a Spanish card; DiDi inside Alipay; and the VPN installed and logged in — you can no longer download one from inside China.
The trip’s critical ticket and the first to buy: sales are already open. Look for the G6151, leaving 10:07 and arriving 15:30. The other four direct trains are afternoon ones arriving after dark, which costs you the market recon. If it is sold out, 12306 has an official waiting list and it works better than it sounds.
There are ~19 flights a day and about 3 h in the air: Air China (the first at 07:00), Hainan, China Southern, Sichuan and Chongqing Airlines. Check it leaves from Capital (PEK) and not Daxing (PKX): they are 70 km and a good hour apart. Leaving before 08:30 keeps the Chongqing afternoon and evening whole.
The check-in and check-out dates, exactly as you must enter them, are in the map of nights. Three of them are decisions, not preferences: Furong inside the old town and facing the river (there are very few beds), Canton in Liwan by Changshou Lu (the market ten minutes away on foot) and Shanghai in Puxi near metro line 2 (on the last day you must be at Pudong by 08:15).
All four legs carry 0 checked bags and 12 kg of cabin baggage in total. Buying pearl and silver in Canton, that does not add up: either add checked baggage to the KL0896 —far cheaper online and in advance than at the desk— or the goods leave with a freight forwarder. Decide now: at Pudong on the morning of the 16th there is no room left.
Goods for resale are not personal luggage: they pay VAT and duty on arrival and need an invoice with the seller’s name and stamp. Ask now what paperwork they want and which tariff heading applies to pearl and silver, so you reach Liwan knowing what to request. And be warned: markets do not do tax refunds — only accredited stores do.
It stopped being a difficult ticket in 2025: with the new line there are more than ten services a day and the fastest run is 2 h 02. Look for an early-afternoon departure. Check it leaves from Chongqing East (重庆东) and not Chongqing West or North — three different stations, a long way apart.
Short but infrequent, so do not leave it: look for a mid-morning departure so you arrive in the village for lunch. If there is nothing, a taxi or private car, 2 h over mountain roads (400–600 CNY per car), at the cost of the quiet afternoon.
~39 direct flights a day and 2 h 20 in the air. Fly into Hongqiao (SHA) if you get to choose: it is on the right side of the city. Departure around 15:00, which leaves the morning for the Liwan collection. If you end up heavily loaded, consider the 6 h 30 – 8 h train, which has no baggage limit.
No visa needed for ordinary Spanish passports (see the practical notes), but the passport must have 6 months of validity from entry and free pages. You will also need it every day: train tickets and the Tianmen and Great Wall tickets are all real-name.
Thu 3 Sept
This evening’s errand, and it cannot wait: departure at 07:15, driver waiting all day, back in the afternoon. 600–900 CNY per car. Agree the price in writing, pay at the end, and settle exactly where he picks you up — the Mutianyu car park is big and has several gates.
Fri 4 Sept
Raffles City’s 探索舱 (120–128 CNY) is 10–20% cheaper online than at the counter: book it for an hour before sunset. Hongyadong is free but in high season needs a timed slot via mini-program. The Yangtze cableway is booked on the day at lunchtime (重庆索道公司, ~30 CNY).
Sat 5 Sept
Buy Line A (A线) specifically, ~285 CNY: it is the one that goes up on the longest cableway in the world from the city centre and then crosses the 99-bend road. It works by timed slots with a cap and needs everyone’s passport; in high season the morning ones sell out — if you get an afternoon slot, switch to Line B, which puts the cableway on the way down. The 32 CNY escalator up to Heaven’s Gate is paid there, and you have to ask for it.
Tue 8 Sept
Order it tonight for 08:45: no cars get into the old town, there are steps down to the gate, and at that hour you will not flag one down. It is 20 minutes to Furongzhen and the train will not wait — the next direct one is five hours later.
Fri 11 Sept
Friday, and it is the last working day: the forwarders close on Saturday lunchtime. Ask in writing whether it is door-to-door or to customs only, the real lead time (air 5–10 days, sea 35–50), who pays VAT and duty on arrival, and what paperwork they issue. Many Liwan sellers have their own, and that is the shortest route.
Sat 12 Sept
Five minutes on arrival that change the next three days: a foot session for Sunday (足疗, 150–220 CNY an hour) and a 90-minute oil or tui na one for Monday (from about 260 CNY), ideally at a house of blind masseurs. And the good Tuesday dinner, which is the trip’s last and does fill up.
Sun 13 Sept
A suit or a qipao needs two or three days between fitting and delivery, and you fly on Wednesday at 11:15: ordered today, collected on Tuesday. Get the agreed price, the fitting day and time and the delivery day written on the receipt, and pay only half.
Mon 14 Sept
Opens 24–48 h ahead. And check the airport again: Hongqiao ≠ Pudong, and the transfer from the hotel changes completely — an 8-minute maglev or an hour on the metro. Check the cabin weight too: 12 kg across both bags.
Before you go
Because it is the only one that never doubles back. Beijing (north) → Chongqing (southwest) → Zhangjiajie and Furong (the Hunan mountains) → Canton (south) → Shanghai (east coast): every hop moves the same way and the last climbs to the delta, which is where the flight home leaves from. And two coincidences work in your favour: Furong sits on the direct line to Canton —one train, no changes— and Canton falls on Thursday and Friday, the two days of the week when factories, forwarders and banks work. Any other order adds a diagonal leg or puts the business on a weekend.
Thirteen nights split like this: Beijing 2, Chongqing 1, Zhangjiajie 2, Furong 1, Canton 3 and Shanghai 4. Sightseeing keeps six nights, and the weight —seven— goes to the two stops you marked as priorities. The one arguable call is Chongqing: one night is enough because the futuristic part is nocturnal, and with a morning flight it fits from 12:00 to 23:00 without rushing. If you would rather have two, the night comes out of Shanghai, which drops to three. In the other direction, Zhangjiajie cannot be cut: fog can hide the mountain for a whole day and that second night is the insurance.
The 7,455 m cableway is the longest in the world and it starts in the city centre: it is half the visit, and that is why the recommended route is Line A, which puts it on the way up and adds the 99-bend road. Two warnings. One: the upper section (middle station → summit) has been closed for works since 6 November 2025, with no published reopening date, so today you ride its lower half and the bus does the rest. And two: "big cableway up and down" is not sold —by design it appears once per route—; Line B puts it on the way down and C swaps it for the express cableway, with no buses. Confirm the day before: 0744-8366666.
It is 1,450 km. By plane, ~3 h and ~19 services a day: leave at 07:00–08:30 and by midday you are in Jiefangbei with the afternoon and evening intact, which is exactly what Chongqing needs. By day train it is ~11 h and you arrive after dark: with a single night in the city, that amounts to cancelling the stop. The overnight sleeper saves a hotel but you sleep badly right before a mountain day. With this split, flying is not a preference: it is the condition for Chongqing fitting into one night.
All of this gets done before flying: eSIM or roaming tested, VPN installed and logged in (you can no longer download one from inside China), Alipay and WeChat Pay verified with a Spanish card, and DiDi inside Alipay. With that, the whole country runs from your phone. Carry cash anyway: village taxis, the Furong entrance and —above all— bargaining in Liwan, where the cash discount is real and it is not small.
The four international legs carry 0 checked bags: one cabin bag (55×35×25) plus an accessory (40×30×15) and 12 kg combined. Real consequences. 100 ml liquids for the whole trip, and buy shampoo and cream there. Laundry halfway through — any hotel does it in 24 h. And the big one: there is no room for what you buy in Canton. Either add checked baggage to the return or ship the goods with a forwarder, and that gets decided before you buy, not at Pudong.
Beijing (days 1–2): dry and mild, and grippy soles for the Wall, which is high, uneven steps. Mountain (day 5, Tianmen): the summit can be 10–12 °C colder than town, and windy — a light windproof and one warm layer. Tropics (Canton, days 7–10): 31 °C, 75% humidity and typhoon season; light clothes, a spare shirt and a folding umbrella. Shanghai is the mild version of that. Throughout: a power bank and a light rain jacket.
In Liwan prices are quoted by the strand and by the lot, never by the piece; the first number assumes bargaining and you open at 30%. The wholesale floors shut at 18:00 even though the rest of the building stays open. Test the nacre by rubbing two pearls: a good one feels faintly gritty, an imitation slides. And here is what separates a souvenir from a business purchase: an invoice with name and stamp (发票), a physical sample of the exact lot they will ship, and the seller’s WeChat — the supplier who fills the second order is worth more than the discount on the first. Important warning: market stalls do not process tax refunds, which only accredited stores (退税商店) do.
Online and in advance, because they are real-name or capacity-limited: Tianmen Mountain (Line A, timed slots), the Raffles deck in Chongqing (10–20% cheaper than the counter), the Hongyadong slot in high season and the Yangtze cableway. At the gate, no risk: Mutianyu with its chairlift and toboggan, the Furong entrance, Tianmen’s 32 CNY escalator, Yuyuan and the glass sections. The rule: real-name and capacity-limited items online; small sums and on-the-spot calls, there and then.
Not needed. The waiver for ordinary Spanish passports is extended until 24:00 on December 31, 2026, for stays of up to 30 days. The passport does need 6 months of validity from entry. If anyone stays in a private home, they must register at the nearest police station within 24 hours — hotels do it for you.
Route decisions
An itinerary is also defined by what it discards. These stayed on the cutting-room floor, for a reason.
It was the other answer to the buying, and it has been dropped. Shanxiahu handles 70% of the world’s freshwater pearl trade and produces 73% of world output: you gained the link itself, source pricing and a factory supplier. Two things came with it. One, Zhuji is pearl and nothing else —no silver, no clasps, no mounts, no boxes— which forced Yiwu in as another whole day. And two, it is not built for the foreign buyer: it quotes by the hank and by the kilo, and anyone walking in without numbers gets a tourist price. Canton solves everything in one building, in a city used to invoicing foreigners: you pay a middleman, you gain the full range, and two working days instead of three of transfers.
Out by your own decision, and the split is grateful for it: the ticket is real-name, timed and sells out seven days ahead, it closes on Mondays and it eats a whole morning plus the Temple of Heaven in the afternoon. Taking it out, Beijing goes from three nights to two and that night goes straight to Shanghai. What you lose is not small —it is the largest surviving complex of wooden palaces in the world— but with a single declared objective in Beijing, two nights and one clean Wall day is the best possible use of the north.
Zhangjiajie National Forest Park —three thousand sandstone pillars, a World Heritage Site, the landscape behind the floating mountains— is out at your request. It is consistent: it needed a whole day plus a night, a 225 CNY ticket, 40 minutes by bus to the gate and eight hours out of the hotel between internal buses and lifts. With Tianmen already in, the trip’s mountain image is covered, and that night is worth more in Canton. If you ever return to Hunan, this is the first reason.
Two nights would let in Ciqikou, the Three Gorges Museum, the Shibati staircases and an unhurried morning — which is exactly the Chongqing you did not ask for. The futuristic part happens between 17:30 and 22:30 and fits entirely into the arrival afternoon, with the following morning thrown in before the train. The only real reason to add it would be insurance against a delayed flight; if that worries you, say so before the hotels are booked and the night comes out of Shanghai.
The one that hurts most. China’s most famous old town is an hour and a half by car from Furong, its wooden houses over the Tuo River, and it would need a night between Furong and Canton. It is out because Furong offers the same idea —a Tujia town over water— with a tenth of the people, and because that night is committed to the business. If a spare day ever appears, this is the first thing to reclaim.
Both are half an hour and an hour by train from Shanghai, and both want a whole day: the gardens of Suzhou, West Lake in Hangzhou. With four Shanghai nights they would fit — but Shanghai is here to rest, shop and be treated, not to catch another train. The excursion that does fit, and only on day 13, is Zhujiajiao: the water town is an hour away on metro line 17 and is walked in three hours without leaving the city network.
The great absentee from the classic itinerary. It is 4 h 30 by train from Beijing and needs two nights, which would come out of Canton or Shanghai. With the Wall, Chongqing, Tianmen and two business stops already in, adding Xi’an would turn the trip into a permanent transfer. It is the natural candidate for the next trip to China.