8-Day Private Silk Road Tour of Zhangye, Jiayuguan and Dunhuang

Meal: Not Included

Hotel: Overnight in Dunhuang

Welcome to Zhangye! Your tour guide will welcome you in the airport/train station, and then escort you to your hotel. The rest of today is for you to explore this exotic city by yourself.

Attractions: Danxia Geopark, Binggou Danxia Landform

Meal: Not Included

Hotel: Overnight in Zhangye

In the morning, drive to explore the famous Danxia Geopark(Danxia Landform). There are strange shape, colorful, magnificent Danxia landform. Danxia refers to the isolated peaks and steep strange rocks formed by long-term weathering and erosion of red sand conglomerate. The Danxia landform here developed from the Pre-Jurassic to the Tertiary period about 200 million years ago.

Continue to visit the Binggou Danxia Landform. With sandstone landform relic landscape as the main body, is the geological landform relic with the best development and largest scale of window root palace in China. It is the geological naming place of "window root palace Danxia" and has been rated as "the first window root palace Danxia landform in China". Binggou Danxia is famous for its "majestic and miraculous" and is known as "the first wonder under heaven". It has been named as one of the "7 most beautiful Danxia landforms in China" and one of the "10 amazing geographical wonders in the world" by Chinese Geographic Magazine and National Geographic Magazine of the United States.

Overnight in Zhangye.

Attractions: Giant Buddha Temple, Matisi Temple

Meal: Not Included

Hotel: Overnight in Zhangye

After breakfast, you will go to visit the famous Giant Buddha Temple, formerly known as Kasye Tathagai Temple, because the temple has China's largest indoor Nirvana reclining Buddha statue named, it is also known as "Reclining Buddha Temple", for the temple built by the royal family, is a national 4A level tourist attraction. It is located in Dafosi Lane, Minzhu West Street, Ganzhou District, Zhangye City, Gansu Province, with a total area of more than 30,000 square meters.

After the Giant Buddha Temple visit, drive about 65 km to visit the Matisi Temple (Matisi Grottoes). It is a tourist area integrating grottoes art, Qilian Mountain scenery and Tibetan customs. The grottoes are composed of seven places: Shengguo Temple, Puguang Temple, Thousand Buddha Cave, Jinta Temple, upper, middle and lower Guanyin Cave, with a total of more than 70 cave niches, built in Beiliang. Horseshoe Temple gets its name from the horseshoe prints of the legendary Tianma drinking water here. The legendary horseshoe imprinting exists in the horseshoe temple of Puguang Temple and has become the treasure of the town temple.

Then drive to Jiayuguan City, overnight in Jiayuguan.

Attractions: Jiayuguan Pass, Xuanbi Great Wall

Meal: Not Included

Hotel: Overnight in Guazhou

After breakfast, drive to visit "the First and Greatest Pass under Heaven", also the westernmost starting point of the Great Wall of Ming Dynasty - Jiayuguan Pass. Here, the "Ancient Silk Road" opened up more than 2,000 years ago for economic and cultural exchanges between China and the West and the "ancient battlefield" beacon beacon of military battles of all generations can be seen. Here is the intersection of China's Silk Road culture and the Great Wall culture, known as "Hexi city", border key ".

Continue to visit the Xuanbi Great Wall. The Xuanbi Great Wall is about 11 kilometers away from Jiayuguan city and about 7 kilometers away from Jiayuguan City. It is called "Xuanbi Great Wall" because it is built on a ridge of about 45 degrees and looks like hanging upside down.

After that, transfer to Guazhou for overnight.

Attractions: Yulin Grotto, Suoyangcheng Ruins

Meal: Not Included

Hotel: Overnight in Dunhuang

After breakfast, you will be transferred the Yulin Grottoes. Also known as Wanfo Gorge, is one of the important grottoes of Chinese Buddhist grottoes art, located in Guazhou County 76 kilometers south of the Yulin River on both sides of the gravel cliff. Yulin Grottoes was built in the Northern Wei Dynasty. The grottoes' shape, mural content, artistic style and the title of the donors all show the close connection with the art of the Mogao Grottoes. As an integral part of Dunhuang art, Yulin Grottoes has high historical and artistic value.

The key town of the Silk Road, Suoyangcheng Ruins, is at the western edge of the Hexi Corridor and is the hub leading to the Western regions. Thousands of years passed, and this place was deserted. But history will remember that there have been countless wars and fires here, through the flow of monks' business trips. This was once a precious oasis in the midst of an extremely arid desert.

At the end, you will be transferred to Dunhuang.

Attractions: Mogao Grottoes, White Horse Pagoda

Meal: Not Included

Hotel: Overnight in Dunhuang

After breakfast, drive to Mogao Grottoes. Commonly known as the Thousand Buddha Caves, are located on the cliff at the eastern foot of the Mingsha Mountain, 25 kilometers southwest of Dunhuang City, facing the eastern side of the Tongquan River. The distribution of the caves is staggered, the scale of the subzone ratio, and there are up to five layers up and down. It is famous for its exquisite murals and statues. It was built in the sixteen States before the Qin period, after the sixteen States, the Northern Dynasty, Sui, Tang, five dynasties, Western Xia, Yuan and other dynasties of construction. With 735 caves, 45,000 square meters of murals and 2,415 clay colored sculptures, it is the largest and richest Buddhist art site in the world.

After lunch, visit the White Horse Pagoda. Located in the south of Dunhuang City, the White Horse Pagoda was built in 386 AD. According to legend, it was built for a white horse who died on the road when Kuma Dongshi, a senior monk in Beiliang, was teaching Buddhism. Now it has become a famous tourist attraction in Dunhuang.

Attractions: Yardang National Geologic Park, Yumen Pass, Great Wall of Han Dynasty, Mingshashan Desert

Meal: Not Included

Hotel: Overnight in Dunhuang

After breakfast, you will be taken to explore the remote wild Gobi Desert landscape as well as several legendary historical sites. Drive westwards about 100 km, you will firstly arrive at Yumen Pass (Jade Gate Pass), also known as the Small Fangpan City, prospered with the prosperity of the Silk Road, and was once a place through which merchants from the Western regions and people from the Central Plains came and went. Because Hetian jade was imported from here to the Central Plains since ancient times, it is called the Jade Gate Pass.

 About 5 km from Yumen Pass is the Ruin of Great Wall of Han Dynasty which was built to fight against Xiongnu in the ancient time.

Keep driving more 80 km, you will get to Yardang National Geologic Park. Commonly known as Dunhuang Yadan Devil City. It is an important part of Dunhuang Global Geopark in China. At the same time, it is also one of the three most beautiful Yadan landforms in China. Dunhuang Yadan landforms are the largest, most mature and most ornamental communities of Yadan landforms found in the world so far. In December 2001, the Ministry of Land and Resources approved the establishment of the "Gansu Dunhuang Yadan National Geopark". In August 2003, the park was officially opened and opened to visitors. In November 2006, it was assessed by the National Tourism Administration as an AAAA level tourist attraction, and has been approved as a land and resources science popularization base, Gansu Provincial science popularization Education base, and Gansu Provincial Geological Heritage Nature Reserve.

Leave Yardang National Geologic Park, and drive along the coming way back to Dunhuang. The following attraction is the Echoing Sand Mountains (Mingshashan). The sand mountain is a desert formed under the action of wind. The long yellow sand gathers here to form the sand mountain. The sand mountain will ring under the wind, so it gets its name. In the arms of the sand mountain, there is a crescent shaped lake, the lake grows beside the sand willow, populus euphrysalis, forming an oasis, here called "Crescent Lake". Crescent Lake is a small lake, the water is quite clear and blue. In full sunlight, the water glows with the pleasant colors of the garden. When winter comes, the lake of Crescent Spring freezes into a thick white ice, becoming a small ice rink, so that visitors can not only enjoy the beauty of the lake, but also experience the pleasure of the ice.

Attractions: No

Meal: Not Included

Hotel: Not Included

Today is free for you until your tour guide and driver escort you to the airport in time for the scheduled flight/railway station to other destination. Tour ends.