China Travel Forum

[lila]

Hi all,

1. Can anyone please tell me of a nice place to stay in Xi'an. My husbands parents are coming out from Australia and we want them to stay in somewhere nice with decent (doesn't have to be 5 star) facilities but that has some character. If anyone has stayed at the Yangshou Mountain Retreat then they will know what I mean.

2. Also, we are trying to do a 2 week mini highlights tour and planning on doing the following:

4 days in Beijing
4 days in Xi'an
4 days in Yangshou
3 days in Hong Kong (this is where we live so no changing that as a destination)

Is this too long in Xian do you think? Any other recommendations...Shanghai/Suzhou? We have been to Yangshou and BJ before so we are keen to show them those places. Are we trying to do too much?
Thank you.

[Drick]

If you just want to show them the main tourist sites, then you can cut Xi’an down to 2 nights. We did a quick trip last year of Shanghai (3 nights), Xi’an (2 nights) and BJ (3) and found that 2 nights in Xi’an was just fine. We arrived in the afternoon, giving us time to wander around the old city wall, see the Drum Tower etc, and spent a full day visiting the Terracotta Warriors, Goose Pagoda etc etc. Managed to fit in an early morning bike ride round the city walls (well one quarter of them) before flying out.

Personally speaking I loved Shanghai. Great, modern vibrant city. However – it’s very close to HK in style in some respects. We spent a day in Suzhou and I think that was well worth doing. If you could, you could cut Xi’an down to 2 nights and allocate 2 days to Shanghai – one to be spend in Shanghai itself and the other out at Suzhou. Shanghai is of course very close to HK, so makes sense to fly to HK straight after, though when we did our trip we did Shanghai first because our travelling companions were finishing in HK and I wanted them to have Xi’an and BJ in between so there was a difference in cultures.

[Brave]

Hotel Royal Xi'an, 4 star, located near the Bell Tower area of Xi'an,the non smoking room is very excellent. It's a member of Japan's Nikko Hotels group,also highly recommended by Lonely Planet China. When I and my wife traveled in China last summer,I stayed there for 3 nights. A guy named John( his email:johnqingg2004@yahoo.com.cn , Tel: 86--29--87927389) in China City Travel Service reserved the room with very cheap price for us, Just a half of the normal,and including western breakfast.
Guilin and Yangshuo's scenery ranks the first in China,spending about 5 days is an ideal plan.