Shanghai, Zhangjiajie, Xi'an & Beijing, 9 Nights

Met at Pudong International by an English-speaking driver and taken to the hotel, about an hour away. Rooms are generally ready from mid-afternoon. In the evening walk down to the Bund, where the stone banks and customs house of the old international settlement face the lit towers of Pudong across the Huangpu. The riverside promenade is at its best after dark and costs nothing.

The Jade Buddha Temple first, a working monastery built for two white-jade Buddhas brought from Burma. Then to the old town and Yu Garden, a Ming family garden of rock piles and fish ponds behind a busy bazaar. A silk workshop visit shows how cocoons become thread. After lunch the Bund in daylight, a walk along Nanjing Road, and the evening lift to the 88th floor of the Jin Mao Tower in Pudong for the city spread out in lights.

An early flight into Hunan, around two and a half hours; the train is possible too, but takes far longer and is booked only if you prefer it. Zhangjiajie's airport is close to the city, and so is the lower station of the Tianmen Mountain cable car, which makes the afternoon workable. The ride climbs for the best part of half an hour to a summit of cliff walkways, and a bus descends the switchback road to Heaven's Gate, the vast hole worn through the mountain.

A full day in the Wulingyuan area, where Zhangjiajie National Forest Park protects thousands of thin sandstone pillars standing out of subtropical forest. Park buses connect the viewpoints; the highlights are Yuanjiajie, whose columns inspired the floating mountains in Avatar, and the Bailong lift, a glass elevator that runs up the outside of a sheer cliff. Paths are paved but long, and the crowds thin noticeably away from the main platforms. Cloud often hangs among the peaks in the morning and lifts by afternoon.

Breakfast and the transfer to the airport for the flight to Xi'an, about two hours. Met on arrival and driven into the walled city. In the evening, the square around the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, a Tang-dynasty tower built to house the scriptures the pilgrim-monk Xuanzang carried back from India, where the musical fountain plays after dark. The streets around the square fill with families and food stalls on fine evenings.

East out of the city to the Terracotta Army, found by farmers digging a well in 1974: some eight thousand soldiers, horses and chariots set in the ground beside the burial mound of Qin Shi Huang, each face individually modelled. A visit to a pottery workshop shows how the figures were made. Back in town, a stop on the fourteenth-century city wall, which still rings the old centre completely, and free time in the Muslim Quarter for flatbreads, noodles and dried fruit.

The high-speed train from Xi'an North to Beijing West takes around four and a half hours across the loess country and the north China plain. Met at the station and taken to the hotel. The evening is free; the hutong lanes around the Drum and Bell Towers or the lakes at Houhai are good places to stretch the legs after a day of sitting, and both have plenty of restaurants.

Tiananmen Square, and then the Forbidden City through the Meridian Gate: halls of state on the central axis, the emperors' private quarters behind them, and the Imperial Garden at the northern end. It shuts on Mondays and requires passport-linked advance tickets, so the two Beijing days may swap. In the afternoon, the Temple of Heaven and its park, then Wangfujing, the city's main pedestrian shopping street, for the evening.

North-west to Juyongguan, where the Great Wall climbs steeply up both sides of a strategic pass; the steps are high and uneven, so take it at your own pace. On the way back, the Summer Palace, the imperial retreat on Kunming Lake with its covered Long Corridor and Longevity Hill, and a stop at the Olympic Green for the 2008 stadium. A farewell dinner of Peking duck is easy to arrange for the last night.

Breakfast at the hotel and the private transfer to Capital or Daxing airport for the flight home, about an hour. If the flight is late, bags can stay at the hotel after check-out and the morning can go on a walk in nearby Jingshan Park, whose hill looks down on the golden roofs of the Forbidden City. The climb takes about ten minutes, and in the early morning the park is full of people singing, dancing and practising tai chi.