4 Days Jiayuguan and Dunhuang Tour(Silk Road Short Break)

Day 1 Jiayuguan Arrival
Welcome to Jiayuguan. Your tour guide will meet you in the airport/train station in the morning, and then escort you to your hotel.

In the afternoon, drive about 10 minutes to visit the Jiayuguan Fort. Before entering the fortress, take a short visit to the Great Wall Museum to learn some interesting facts about both the Jiayuguan Fort and Great Wall, including history, old photos, relics, etc. Then enter the gate to explore the grandiose fortress. The fort is farthest fortress of Great Wall of Ming Dynasty. It is a complex of towers, city walls and other military buildings covering more than 25,000 square meters. The city wall is nearly 11 meters high, and comprises an outer and inner wall. There are two large gates standing at the east and the west of the inner wall. Walkways lead to the top of the wall, allowing horses to climb up the wall.

Leave Jiayuguan Fort, and drive to visit the Xuanbi Great Wall (Overhanging Wall) which is about 18km away from the Fort. The walls were built on lofty cliffs with incredibly large gradient looking like an overhanging cantilever. Climbing up to higher gives you excellent views of the surrounding land and mountains.

Jiayuguan FortGreat Wall Museum
Day 2 Dunhuang ( B,L )
Today you will drive to Dunhuang from Jiayuguan in the early morning. On route, visit the Yulin Grottoes. The forty-two caves house some 250 polychrome statues and 4,200 square meters of wall paintings, dating from the Tang Dynasty to the Yuan Dynasty (seventh to fourteenth centuries).

In the evening, you can go out to go for a walk in the Shazhou Night Market where you can try some local food, relax in a drinking bar, or buy some interesting handcrafts, etc.

Stay overnight in Dunhuang.

Yulin Grottoes
Day 3 Dunhuang ( B,L )
After breakfast, drive about 10km from the Dunhuang city to visit the newly opened Mogao Grottoes Digital Exhibition Center before go to Mogao Grottoes. You will watch two well-produced educational documentary movies that introduce the history, arts, and other facts about Mogao Grottoes. After the movies, take the interzonal bus to Mogao Grottoes. Mogao Grottoes is famed as the “Louvre of East”, which is outstanding for its exquisite mural paintings and statues. There are now 492 grottoes in which about 45000 square meters mural paintings and 2100 colorfully painted statues from which you can trace the development of Chinese art over 1600 years from one dynasty to the next because each dynasty built own caves to record its own features. There are about 40 common caves opened to the public. In the tourist area, you will be divided into groups by different tour guides who will accompany you to visit 7-8 caves among them with great introduction. After that, if you want to visit more other caves, you can do it by yourselves or follow other tour guides. Besides, there are 10 special caves (with extra fees) available for your extensional visiting.

Tips:

1. During peak seasons (May to October), there are usually a lot of visitors to Mogao Caves, so it is recommended to make a reservation in advance for at least 7 days. 2. If you want to see the Special Caves (excluded in the regular visit, and only open for limited individual visitors or small groups with reservations), you can contact our travel consultants or your tour guide to arrange for you, but you have to pay the extra admission fee for each cave. 3. It is not allowed to take photos inside grottoes.

The following attraction is the Echoing Sand Mountains. It is said, in the sunny days, the sand mountains echo like Orchestra music even if there is no wind. If you slide from the sand mountains, you can hear the echoing sound clearly. Your last thing to do for today is the Crescent Lake. Surrounded by the Echoing Sand Mountains, Crescent Lake is a beautiful oasis with some well decorated traditional Chinese architecture, some trees and flowers and a lake that has never dried up and shapes like a crescent moon.

Tips:

1. In the summer time, travelers can stay up to late night around 24:00 to enjoy the cool time and beautiful sky of stars; 2. get fully prepared for the strong sunlight and high temperatures in the daytime.

Echoing Sand Mountainsthe Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang
Day 4 Duhuang Departure ( B,L )
Today’s highlight is the Yardang National Geopark. Yardang has been created over time by the sort part of the earth surface having being eroded by wind and rain, with the hard part of the rocks remaining in the desert. You will drive from Dunhuang city westwards. On route, visit the Yumenguan Pass and Ruin of Great Wall of Han Dynasty.

Drive back to Dunhuang City to catch your flight/train to next destination.