China, from empire to the future.

The city of emperors

Beijing holds nearly six centuries of imperial history. This is where we begin, slowly, at the city's pace.

• Tai chi at dawn in the Temple of Heaven park
• The Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square
• The Temple of Heaven, where the emperor prayed for good harvests
• Wangfujing Street and its street snacks

Two thousand years across the mountains

We ride the cable car up to the Mutianyu section, among watchtowers and forested slopes, where the Wall snakes along the ridges as far as the eye can see. On the way back, the Sacred Way of the Ming Tombs, lined with stone statues, and the Bird's Nest, the 2008 Olympic stadium.

Needles, herbs and tea

A day devoted to the body as China understands it: a Chinese medicine center, a traditional pharmacy and, in the afternoon, the gardens of the Summer Palace and a pause at a teahouse.

• Visits to acupuncture and tui na massage centers
• The traditional pharmacy and its hand-weighed herbs
• The Summer Palace and Kunming Lake

The temple hanging from the cliff

In about two hours by bullet train, we head to Datong, the ancient Buddhist capital of the north. There, a wooden monastery has balanced on a sheer rock face for more than 1,500 years, and thousands of Buddhas were carved into the caves.

• The Hanging Temple, on Mount Heng
• The Yungang Grottoes, a UNESCO World Heritage Site
• Huayan Temple and the Nine Dragon Wall
• By bullet train, we continue to Xi'an

The army that guards an emperor

Xi'an was the capital of many dynasties and the starting point of the Silk Road. Nearby, thousands of terracotta soldiers, each with a different face, have guarded the tomb of China's first emperor for more than two thousand years.

• The Terracotta Army and the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda
• Xi'an's Ancient City Wall, on foot or by bike
• A Tang Dynasty dinner show with a dumpling banquet
• The Muslim Quarter, with spices, teas and street food

A landscape that looks brush-painted

The mountains in Chinese paintings really exist. In Guilin, the Li River flows between green-covered limestone peaks, and we sail down it to Yangshuo, where fishermen still head out on bamboo rafts.

• The Li River cruise, from Guilin to Yangshuo
• Reed Flute Cave and Elephant Trunk Hill
• A bike ride through the fields along the Yulong River

From fishing village to tech capital

We arrive by bullet train, about three hours from Guilin. In just a few decades, Shenzhen went from a fishing village to China's largest technology hub. Here, the future is already walking the streets.

• A ride in a robotaxi, the driverless car
• Coffee delivered by drone and a robot store
• Huaqiangbei, the city's huge electronics market
• The view from the top of the Ping An Finance Center

A skyline that looks like fiction

In 1990, Pudong was little more than farmland. Today it's Shanghai's skyline of skyscrapers, where the Bund and Ming Dynasty gardens share the view with towers over 2,000 feet tall.

• The Bund, Nanjing Road and a night cruise on the Huangpu River
• Yu Garden and the Jade Buddha Temple
• Shanghai Tower, with an observation deck on the 118th floor

West Lake tea and the train that levitates

One hour by bullet train takes us to Hangzhou. In the hills around West Lake, Longjing tea is picked by hand, leaf by leaf, in the same city where Alibaba and DeepSeek were born. On the last day, the Maglev, which floats above its tracks, takes us to the airport.