3 weeks in China

One of the advantages of working in France is that you get a lot of holidays. And when I say a lot, I mean a LOT: 37 days (25 standard + 12 if you do a minimum of 40 hours a week)…

My principle is to use the days they give me and so for the first time in my 5 year old career (yes, already…), a 3 weeks holiday was possible!

The main trigger for this China trip was the magic of the Great Wall. “The only human element that is visible from space” – even when that’s a myth, we wanted to go and climb the Great Wall. So, we bought our tickets, and would start our trip in Shanghai and end it in Beijing.

I guess it’s safe to say that I am an organised person. For the MBTI fans, I am an ESTJ, and the J means that I feel more comfortable when things are planned, when I know what will happen. This China trip was an exercise in getting out of my comfort zone, because with all the “relocation to Cincinnati” stuff going on, we didn’t plan anything.

Ok, that’s perhaps a bit exagerated, this is what we had when we left:
• Plane tickets to Shanghai and leaving from Beijing 3 weeks later
• China visas, valid for a month
• 3 first and 3 last nights booked
• a draft itinerary
• an emergency internet address of a hotel in each of the cities on our itinary
• emergency medication mainly for stomach ache and some antibiotics

You may think this is very organised, but it’s not for China. Of all the people I spoke to who had been to China, most told me that it was probably not a good idea to leave like this. Well, we didn’t really have a choice as time caught up with us, so we left.

And guess what? It was perfectly fine! It was flexible, we could decide as we went along to stay just 2 nights or to stay an extra 2 days! I loved it. And we didn’t need any of the medication :)

So this is the trip we did:
• Shanghai – 4 nights
• Hangzhou with trip to Wuzhen – 3 nights
• Xi’an with trip to terracotta warriors and Huashan mountain – 2 nights
• Pingyao – 2 nights
• Datong with trip to the Yungang grottos – 2 nights
• Beijing with trip to the Great Wall – 5 nights


This made for a very easygoing trip. You could do more in 3 weeks, but this itinerary allowed for a quiet pace, which is exactly what we wanted.

In the next posts I will tell you my impressions of each city and some travel tips.

Enjoy!

Louise