Four days, and the fourth is optional — plenty of people who have been will tell you three covers the famous things, and they have a point. What matters more than the length is the order: the museum makes sense of everything else, so it goes early, and Lintong is a whole day rather than a morning at the warriors. Two bookings decide the trip, and both open days before you arrive. Everything below runs on the metro and one ¥2 bus.
At a glance
- Day 1Bell Tower → Drum Tower → Sajinqiao → the wall at dusk
- Day 2Shaanxi History Museum → Big Wild Goose Pagoda → Tang Everbright City
- Day 3Terracotta Army → Lishan Garden → Huaqing Palace → the evening show
- Day 4Forest of Steles → Gao's Courtyard House → a last roujiamo
Day 1
The old centre, and where the locals actually eat
Bell Tower → Drum Tower → Sajinqiao → the wall at dusk
Come up from Zhonglou station through the underground passage — there is no crossing the traffic circle above ground. A combined ticket for both towers is about ¥50. Then the thing every guide to this city gets wrong: Beiyuanmen, the lantern-hung street through the Drum Tower's arch, is the Muslim Quarter people photograph, and Sajinqiao a few streets west is the one they eat in. Go to Sajinqiao hungry and treat Beiyuanmen as a walk. Finish on the city wall — ¥54 up, ¥45 for a bike, rented at the South Gate above Yongningmen station. Fourteen kilometres round, ninety minutes at a gentle pace, and late afternoon is when the light is good and the coach parties have left.
Day 2
The Tang morning, and a night in the new city
Shaanxi History Museum → Big Wild Goose Pagoda → Tang Everbright City
The museum is the two hours that make sense of everything else in Xi'an, and the booking is the whole difficulty: slots open five days ahead at 17:00 Beijing time and are gone in minutes, so book before you fly rather than after you land. Pay the extra ¥30 for the Hejiacun gold and silver in the Treasures of Great Tang hall. Afterwards the Da Ci'en temple grounds are about ¥40 and climbing the pagoda ¥25 more, paid at the tower, with the ticket window shutting an hour before the grounds do. Tang Everbright City runs south from the pagoda, free, and only makes sense after dark — a modern street built to look Tang, with street performance most evenings and a crowd to match.
Day 3
Lintong, and all of it — this is a full day
Terracotta Army → Lishan Garden → Huaqing Palace → the evening show
Metro line 1 to Fangzhicheng then Lintong bus 602, about ¥2 and ninety minutes in all, so leave by eight. Book seven days ahead; the passport you booked with is scanned at the gate, and a guide is worth it — the pits are three sheds of soldiers without one. Walk them backwards: pits 2 and 3 and the bronze chariots are quiet and set up what pit 1 does to you. The same ticket covers the burial mound at Lishan Garden, a free shuttle away. Huaqing Palace is the next stop back down the road, and the Chang Hen Ge show is staged there against the hillside after dark. Plan the day around getting back — not around fitting Huaqing in if there is time, which is how most people end up skipping the best part of it.
Day 4
A slow morning, on whichever of these you have room for
Forest of Steles → Gao's Courtyard House → a last roujiamo
The fourth day is the one plenty of people will tell you to cut, and they are not wrong that three days covers the famous things. Spend it inside the walls if you keep it. The Forest of Steles is a thousand years of carved stone and almost empty on a weekday; Gao's Courtyard House, off Beiyuanmen, is a Ming merchant's home with shadow-puppet performances through the day. Both are ten minutes from the Bell Tower. Then a roujiamo standing up, and line 2 to Xi'an North in about half an hour — check your ticket first, because some trains leave from Xi'an Station instead.
Eat like you mean it
- RoujiamoPork braised for hours, chopped fine, packed into a griddled flatbread. Fan Ji Lazhi Rou on Zhubashi has done it since 1925.
- Yangrou paomoYou tear the bread yourself and the kitchen judges you on it. Lao Sun Jia, since 1898.
- Biangbiang noodlesOne belt-wide noodle under chilli and garlic. Yongxingfang, inside Zhongshan Gate.
- LiangpiCold wheat-starch noodles with vinegar and chilli oil — the thing to eat between two hot meals.
- JinggaoA steamed rice cake off a cart on Beiyuanmen, sesame and sugar, eaten walking.
- HuluotouPig intestine cleaned until it turns mild, over torn bread. Chun Fa Sheng, since 1920.
Where to stay
- Bell Tower & Drum TowerFirst trip: the Muslim Quarter and both towers on foot, metro lines 1 and 2 under you.
- South Gate (Yongningmen)Quieter, and you walk up onto the wall from the door.
- Big Wild Goose PagodaNewer hotels and the Tang district, twenty minutes out on line 2.
- XiaozhaiThe student end of town: cheapest beds, and the museum is one stop away.
Before you go
- Book the Shaanxi History Museum before you fly. Slots open five days ahead at 17:00 Beijing time and go in minutes, and the passport you book with is scanned at the door.
- Book the warriors seven days ahead, take the first bus out, and pay for a guide. Three sheds of soldiers is what it is without one.
- Eat in Sajinqiao, walk down Beiyuanmen. The lantern street is the one in the photographs and the one everyone who lives here tells you to eat somewhere else.
- Give Lintong the whole day. Huaqing Palace and the evening show are what people regret missing, and they are what gets cut when the warriors are squeezed into a morning.
- Ride the wall in the late afternoon. It is fourteen kilometres of unshaded brick.
- Worth skipping: the Qin tomb 'underground palace', which is a modern mock-up; the Daming Palace site, which is a very large lawn; and Famen Temple, which is two hours out each way.
One honest thing — Both of the big sights are booked days in advance and scan the passport you booked with — the warriors seven days ahead, the Shaanxi History Museum five days ahead at 17:00 Beijing time, and that one sells out in minutes.
