Tips 👏
- It’s a very big city, so make sure to stay in the old city centre.
- Hiring a private driver for one day worth it.
🏠 Accommodation
We slept at a central AirBnB. Small but very clean and convenient!
🚲 Getting there
Bullet train from Shijiazhuang, 4h20.
⏱ Duration
We stayed three nights, two full days, and felt that was enough.
Terracotta Army 🏛
What a wonderful place to visit, very old and impressive (it wouldn’t be a complete China trip without this one). To get there, we hired a private driver for the day for 500RMB (our host put us in touch). We left Xi’an centre at 7AM and arrived at 8AM. We recommend you to do the same since the site is always packed. When we left we saw people queuing for hours.
For the tickets, we’ve pre-booked our tickets online via an agency (Travel China Guide) the day before for 120RMB/tickets. Few minutes after booking, we received a confirmation email with our ticket numbers and instructions to pick them up. The website takes a commission, but it definitely worth it. The stand to pick-up the tickets had no queue and it took us few second to get them. The general sales one had a massive and anarchic queue. Your choice :) Also, bring your passports!
About the site itself, there’s three pits and a museum. We started by the Pit 1 (the biggest one), then 2, then 3 and then museum. Being early morning 100% worth it to avoid too many people in Pit 1.
Old City Walls 🏯
After visiting the Terracotta, we asked our driver to bring us back in town to do scenic pictures of the old city. Xi’an have an old city, surrounded by big and beautiful walls. Having a driver was very handy to bring us in several places where we could walk along those and take amazing pictures. You can also pay and go onto the wall, but that’s not from there you’ll have the best view of it. One of the best spot is at Yongingmen Tube Station.
Later on we stopped by a very nice buddhist temple, at the North East corner of the wall (Guangren Temple). Free and peaceful!
Street Food Market 🍤
Same day, later at night we went to the famous Street Food Market of Xi’an in the Muslim Quarter. Tons of people and food options, one after the other. Make sure to go around 7PM where all the stand are open. Hiring a guide for it might be good idea to tell you what are in each dishes but you don’t have to. We’ve been by ourselves and try as much as possible, such as chinese hamburger, dumplings, fried potatoes, skewers and sweet cakes.
Restaurants 🍲
- Street Market: As mentionned above, cheap and a lot of options.
- Haidilao Hot Pot (Jiefang Road): Must do while in Xi’an. Delicious ingredients, good value, english speaker waiters and menus. Best specially if you try the hot-pot for the first time!
Read Next ⏭️
Our three days stay in city of Chengdu to see pandas, check again Shijiazhuang, or go back to the main China post.