Yellow Mountain - China

Day 1. Your tour will begin with Paul Gal­lagher, Michael Pilk­ing­ton and our guide meet­ing you at Shang­hai. You will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to pho­to­graph this amaz­ing city and we will explore the ​‘Bund’ which is the water­front that hugs the west bank of the Huang­pu Riv­er and boasts archi­tec­ture in Baroque, Goth­ic, Romanesque, Chi­nese and Renais­sance styles. No vis­it to Shang­hai would be com­plete with­out pho­tograph­ing the city sky­line at night! On this night we stay in Shanghai.

Day 2. On this day we leave the city lights behind and head for the world famous West Lake in Hangzhou. This beau­ti­ful fresh­wa­ter lake has influ­enced poets and painters through­out Chi­nese his­to­ry and is home to numer­ous tem­ples, pago­das and ornate gar­dens with wil­low trees. On this night we stay in Hangzhou.

Day 3. We begin day three of our adven­ture by mov­ing fur­ther towards the Yel­low Moun­tain and on route we vis­it two world famous ancient Chi­nese vil­lages, Qiank­ou and Chengkan. These fas­ci­nat­ing vil­lages are an ancient com­plex of archi­tec­ture dat­ing back to the Ming (1368 ‑1644) and Qing (1644 ‑1911) dynas­ties. Both vil­lages are an intri­cate maze of tiny streets and alley­ways nev­er too far from water­ways with bridges lead­ing to beau­ti­ful gar­dens. This day will be an oppor­tu­ni­ty for you to immerse your­self into real Chi­nese ancient cul­ture. This night we stay at Tangmo.

Day 4. We begin today with a short jour­ney to Ling­shan which is a Hui-style ancient vil­lage sur­round­ed by vast bam­boo groves in the imme­di­ate foothills of the Yel­low Moun­tain. Bam­boo is an inte­gral part of the vil­lagers lives and bam­boo crafts can be seen every­where. After lunch we make our way to the base of the Yel­low Moun­tain and take the cable car up to our first hotel up on the moun­tain, The Bei­hai Hotel.

Days 5 to 8. Over the next four and a half days we will ded­i­cate our time entire­ly to pho­tograph­ing the stag­ger­ing­ly beau­ti­ful Huang­shan or ​‘Yel­low Moun­tain’ area. This is an area of high sharp gran­ite peaks jut­ting out of the mists and famous for its hardy Huang­shan Pines that grow pre­car­i­ous­ly into cliffs edges over 1500 meters up. From here we will be tak­ing our time and walk­ing the well paved moun­tain paths to some of the most unimag­in­able moun­tain scenery any­where in the world. Because our ele­va­tion the light and con­di­tions change con­stant­ly. The clouds arrive and move through cre­at­ing amaz­ing views of the moun­tains and trees. Dur­ing the evenings light mists veil the peaks cre­at­ing scenery that has influ­enced Chi­nese painters for centuries.

This moun­tain area and World Her­itage Site cov­ers 154 square kilo­me­tres and the best known moun­tains are Lotus Peak, Bright Sum­mit Peak and Celes­tial Peak all of which reach just less than 2000 meters. We will explore the Grand Canyon and take the cable car above the mists to the sum­mit view­points of Begin­ning-to-Believe Peak, Pur­ple Cloud Peak and Tian­du Peak. Dur­ing our time on the moun­tain we will be stay­ing in four indi­vid­ual hotels on the tops of the moun­tians which will enable us to explore the area exten­sive­ly and be in the best van­tage points at the right time of day.