A Ming walled city,stillfully inhabited.
Three hours south of Beijing by high-speed rail, three hours north of Xi'an. China's best-preserved Ming-era walled city, and a working town inside it.
Pingyao is what Beijing's hutongs were before the Qing emperors widened the avenues. A complete Ming-era walled city, six kilometres of walls, four gates, seventy-two watchtowers, with tens of thousands of residents still inside. The day-trip crowds come from Taiyuan and leave by 5 pm. The town we want you to see is the one between 6 pm and 9 am.
Pingyao,
the way we run it.
The wall at sunset
Six kilometres, mostly empty.
The city wall is walkable for its full circuit. We bring you onto the south wall an hour before sunset, walk west, and stay until the lanterns come on in the streets below. Most of the wall is empty by then, the day-trippers are on their buses out.
Rishengchang at first light
China's first bank.
Pingyao was the country's banking capital in the Qing dynasty, the first draft banks in Chinese history opened here. Rishengchang is the oldest, now a museum, and we visit at opening before the noise. The vault is still in the courtyard. The ledger marks are still on the wall.
A courtyard dinner inside the wall
Where the town sleeps.
We stay you inside the walls, in a converted Qing-era merchant's courtyard, not in the new town outside. Dinner is Shanxi noodles and the local vinegar, in the courtyard you walked out of an hour earlier. The town quiets at 9 pm. You hear it from the bed.
On the route,
between the two anchors.
- Pingyao sits on the Beijing-Xi'an high-speed rail line. Adding it costs one night and no flights, the trains were going to pass through anyway.
- We stay you inside the wall, not in the modern town outside. Almost every package tour does the opposite.
- Our Shaanxi ground team has a Pingyao extension, same drivers protocol, same bilingual guide (English & Chinese), same brief.
- No silk-factory detour, no Pingyao-paper-money souvenir shop. The town is the town.
One night,
on the way south.
One night does Pingyao well: arrive by high-speed rail from Beijing late afternoon, walk the wall at sunset, dinner inside the courtyard, the banks and the residential lanes the next morning, train south to Xi'an by lunch. It's the natural extension of a Beijing-then-Xi'an itinerary, not a destination of its own.
The Beijing–Xi'an
axis, extended.
The Great Wall
The same Beijing leg. Wall in the morning, train south to Pingyao in the afternoon.
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The Terracotta Warriors
Three hours south by high-speed rail. Ming walls, then Qin warriors, China's last dynasty before the foreigners, then China's first.
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Xi'an's City Wall
Two intact city walls, three hours apart. The smaller Ming town and the larger Tang-era capital, same idea, different scale.
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Your Beijing-to-Xi'an,
sketched,
by reply tomorrow.
Tell us when you'd like to travel and how the Beijing-Xi'an pacing looks. We'll send a first-draft route (Pingyao courtyard inn named, the wall at sunset, the right train timed) and an honest all-inclusive price. No deposit, no obligation.
From US$360/day on a private 5-seater with driver.
Rolled into your journey quote.