Classic China & Yunnan: Emperors, Old Towns & Snow Mountains

The journey opens in Shanghai's slower quarter. You land at Pudong and transfer to the former French Concession, where plane trees roof the streets and the shikumen — the stone-gated lane houses that defined old Shanghai — still line the blocks behind them. The evening is yours: a walk to a neighbourhood dinner, or a car to the Bund to watch Pudong's towers light up across the Huangpu.

A day for Shanghai's layers, with your guide. Yu Garden first thing, before the lanes around it fill — Ming rockeries, pavilions and zigzag bridges, the Shanghai Tower rising over the rooftops. Along the Bund at midday, the 1920s banks and trading houses on one side of the river and Pudong on the other. The afternoon is the former French Concession on foot: Wukang Road and its villas, the plane-tree streets, and a stop for xiaolongbao, the soup dumplings Shanghai claims as its own.

A late morning on the bullet train north, first class, a little over four hours from the Yangtze delta to the capital. Your Beijing guide meets you at the station and takes you straight into the hutongs — the grey-brick lanes around the Drum and Bell Towers, courtyard gates, birdcages and bicycles — by rickshaw for the long stretches and on foot for the rest. The evening settles around the Houhai lakes, where the lanes come down to the water.

The imperial axis, south to north. Your guide takes you through Tiananmen and the Forbidden City gate by gate — the great throne halls first, then the quieter eastern courtyards where the emperors actually lived — with timed entry booked ahead. Out through the north gate and up Jingshan for the view back over a sea of golden tiles. The afternoon is yours: the hotel is a short walk away, and the lanes around it reward an aimless hour.

Out early with your guide to Mutianyu, about an hour and a half north-east of the city — the restored wall running along a forested ridge, far quieter than Badaling. The cable car lifts you to the ramparts, and from there you walk watchtower to watchtower for as long as the legs want, the wall rolling away over the hills in both directions. Down by toboggan or cable car, and back to Beijing in time for lacquered Peking duck.

Beijing's two great imperial parks. The Temple of Heaven first, early, when its cypress avenues fill with the city at play — tai chi, fan dancers, card games under the trees — before your guide walks you to the round, blue-roofed Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. In the afternoon, the Summer Palace in the north-west: the painted Long Corridor beside Kunming Lake and the climb to the Tower of Buddhist Incense, the emperors' summer retreat laid out below.

A morning flight south — about four hours — trades the capital for Yunnan's high, bright air at around 2,000 metres. Your Yunnan guide and driver take the east-shore road around Erhai Lake to Shuanglang, the old fishing town on its peninsula, the Cang Mountain range across the water. Two nights in the hills above the lake, with the evening light on Cangshan across the water.

A lake day with your guide: the lanes of Shuanglang's old peninsula, a lookout over the bay, and the lakeside road where, in winter, the gulls that fly in for the cold months work the shoreline. The afternoon is yours — a slow walk to a lakeside café, or the terrace, the water and the light on Cangshan.

Around the lake to Xizhou, the old Bai merchant town, for its morning market — rushan cheese frying at the stalls, trays of mushrooms, baskets of greens — then the courtyard mansions the traders built and a stop with a jiama woodblock printer. In the afternoon the road climbs west into the hills to Shaxi, the best-preserved market town on the old Tea Horse Road, where the caravans carrying tea north to Tibet once rested. Three nights here, a short walk from the square.

Up into Shibaoshan with your guide — the Stone Treasure Mountain above the valley, where Buddhist grottoes were carved into red sandstone cliffs under the Nanzhao and Dali kingdoms more than a thousand years ago. Quiet paths through the pines link the carvings and the temples. Back down for a slow afternoon on Sideng Square: the theatre stage facing the temple, the old caravan inns around it, the valley turning gold by late afternoon.

A day with nothing on the schedule, which Shaxi rewards. Wander the old town's lanes and gates, take tea in a sunny courtyard, and walk the riverside path out to the Yujin bridge — the old stone arch the caravans crossed — and on through the fields. If your dates land on a Friday, the weekly market fills the square, farmers walking in from the hills as they have for centuries.

North through Jianchuan county, whose carvers have worked the temples and courtyards of Yunnan for generations — a stop at the woodcarving museum, then a black-pottery workshop where you can watch the potters and try the wheel. On to Lijiang, about two hours from Shaxi, and two nights on Lion Hill above Dayan, the old town — its grey-tiled roofs and canals laid out below, Jade Dragon Snow Mountain beyond. The evening is for the lanes, which are at their best once the day-trippers have gone.

Up into Jade Dragon Glacier Park with your guide — the big cableway climbs to viewing decks at about 4,500 metres beneath the summit glaciers (winter wind can close the top line; if it does, the lower valleys carry the morning). Down to Blue Moon Valley's turquoise pools, then Baisha in the afternoon, the old Naxi seat of power, for its Ming-dynasty murals and a village street that still farms. Lijiang old town's canals and rooftops at dusk to finish.

North along the Jinsha — the upper Yangtze — to Tiger Leaping Gorge, where the river forces itself between the walls of Jade Dragon and Haba snow mountains. Your guide walks you down the stepped path to the rapids, about an hour from Lijiang. Then the long climb onto the Tibetan plateau to Shangri-La at 3,200 metres: three nights beside Songzanlin Monastery, and a first evening kept gentle so the altitude can settle.

Songzanlin first thing, a short walk from your door — the largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Yunnan, its gold roofs stacked up the hillside and pilgrims circling below — walked hall by hall with your guide. Then the Napa lakeshore loop: a seasonal lake on the grassland, yaks grazing its margins and, in winter, the black-necked cranes that come down to feed. A visit with a Tibetan family rounds out the afternoon.

A free day on the plateau, taken at altitude pace — a short drive into Dukezong, the old town, for its lanes and craft workshops, a café window with the mountains in it, and the climb to Guishan above the rooftops, where a giant prayer wheel turns over the rooftops — it takes several people to set it moving. At dusk the birds wheel home over the temple, and your guide's list has the right table for a last plateau dinner.

A last morning on the plateau, then the short transfer to Shangri-La's airport and your flight out via Kunming, timed to connect with your international flight home. If you'd rather a soft landing, we can add a night in Kunming or Shanghai before you go.

The food changes as completely as the landscape. Shanghai is delicate Jiangnan cooking — soup dumplings, red-braised pork — and Beijing is lacquered Peking duck and copper-pot hotpot. Then Yunnan, China's most varied kitchen: rushan, the grilled milk cheese of the Bai, at Xizhou's market; wild mushrooms in season; Naxi baba flatbread in Lijiang; and, on the plateau, yak hotpot and salted butter tea. Lunches and dinners are arranged to suit each place whenever you'd like them included.