cody3

14 days for travel with tickets into and out of Beijing - 2 adults and 2 college age daughters
Beijing- 3 nights
Train to Pingyao 1 night
Train to Xi'an 2 nights
Fly to Guilin and then Yangshou 4 nights- day trip to Lonsheng
Fly to Hong Kong 3 nights
Fly to Beijing Final night in Beijing

Does this seem like too much?
I cant figure out on Ctrip if new line is finished to Pingyao.

rkkwan

Beijing-West to Taiyuan-South has been open for a while, taking 3 hours. Taiyuan-South to Pingyao-East just opened and takes about 40 minutes.

rkkwan

Pingyao to Xian was and still is a 10-hr overnight ride, or a new 3-hr highspeed ride from Pingyao-East to Xian-North.

kja

I thought Beijing easily required a full week just to see the major sites. If you have only 3 nights there, you would do well to think through your priorities in advance.

thursdaysd

What kja said, especially as you will have jetlag. I would drop either Guilin or HK and add the time to Beijing and Xi'an, which has more to see than just the warriors.

JPDeM

No point going through Taiyuan to go to Pingyao, you have Beijing-Pingyao trains that do this in 4 hours.
There is no station called Pingyao east.
You would save time and money if you bought an open-jaw ticket from home to Beijing then HK to home.

kja

"No point going through Taiyuan to go to Pingyao" -- maybe, maybe not! Taiyuan has an excellent museum, and Jin-Ci was one of my favorite temples in China....

JPDeM

What I meant was that it is not longer a requirement if you wish to get there via fast train while before one would have to take a fast train to Taiyuan then switch for the next train to Pingyao (usually on a hard seat).

rkkwan

I stand corrected. There is indeed two direct semi-highspeed trains that go directly from BJ to Pingyao a day.

Pingyao-East was the original name for the new station that the highspeed and semi-highspeed trains serve. It's now called Pingyao Gucheng (Ancient Town of Pingyao) which is distinct from the original train station.

cody3

Thank you all
Did ditch HK and add days to Beijing as book ends. Also now doing train Guilin to Zhengzhou then Luoyang to see Longman Grottoes on way back to Beijing from excellent help on Trip Advisor forum. Any ideas on nice place to stay in Pingyao inside walls?

kja

The Longmen Grottoes are wonderful - well worth seeing! If you have time while in Luoyang, you might also stop at Baima Si and/or Luoyang's very good museum.

I enjoyed the Pingyao Yide Hotel, which still gets good reviews.