Hi All,

After two years of circumstances preventing me from getting to mainland China, I am optimistic that I will get there in 2005. I am in the early stages of planning a two-city itinerary, one of which will be Beijing. I am lookign for advice on where to go for the second city. My time is somewhat limited, with an anticipated arrival in Beijing from Hong Kong on the evening of Oct. 14 and a departure back to Hong Kong on the evening of Oct. 20. I am thinking of spending three full days in Beijing (Oct. 15, 16 and 17), so I am looking to fly to the second city on the morning of Oct. 18. I could fly directly back to Hong Kong from that city or return to Beijing and fly back to HKG, whichever makes more sense.

My main interests are historical/cultural tourism, but a scenic setting that could allow for a hike or something would be nice too.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

i suggest you stay in beijing a little longer (4 or 5 days) and finish up in shanghai. if you had more time, i would advise you to go west (yunnan, xinjiang, sichuan, etc), but since that's not the case, i think shanghai would be your best bet (yes, better than xi'an, hangzhou, nanjing, qingdao, etc.)

I second the longer stay in Beijing. A pretty full day for a Great Wall visit. Forbidden City/Tiananmen is a full day too. That time of year a day trip to the Summer Palace would be awesome too. There's three full days without factoring in Mao's tomb (also in Tiananmen, but lines can be looong, like an hour or two), Temple of Heaven, lots of temples, Wangfujing, markets, etc.!

The National Museum in Shanghai is wonderful.
And so are the terra cotta soldiers in Xi-an.

Have a look at the dragonair schedule, to see what times of day they fly back from various cities direct into HK.. save you backtracking and risking delay in Beijing airport.

http://www.dragonair.com/icms/servle...es=66&lang=eng