Private Beijing Classic Tour and Leisure Time at Houhai

Your private guide and personal driver will meet you in your hotel lobby by 9am. Your first stop is the Tiananmen Square, the world's largest city center plaza and the place where Chairman Mao announced the founding of the People's Republic of China.

Your guide will point out highlights of the square as you walk to the UNESCO-listed Forbidden City, home to China's emperors for almost five centuries, and the best-preserved imperial palace in China. Explore the highlights of its halls, galleries, museums, and gardens as you learn how Chinese emperors and their households lived.

You will enjoy your lunch tasting specialties of Beijing cuisine in a local restaurant.

Next, you will be transferred to the Lama Temple, the most famous Tibetan Buddhist temple outside Tibet. Built as an imperial palace, it became a lamasery in 1744 and is home to stunning Buddha sculptures, including one supposedly carved from a single piece of sandalwood. Here you will see the world largest wooden sculpture of Sakyamuni. It is 26meters high.

Then you will drive to Yinding Bridge and take a rickshaw through historic hutong nearby, narrow alleyways lined with low courtyard houses, and you will enjoy a nice local beer in one of the bars at the bank of Houhai.

From here, you'll drive back to your hotel.