Peking: The first impression of Peking was that of a very large city. The transfer from the airport to the city centre then to the hotel made it possible to appreciate the green and cultivated countryside, people walking on the roads or riding bicycles, overloaded trucks or tractors towing trailers full of agricultural products, suburbs built of apartment buildings, the city centre with very different districts according to the time of construction, Tartar, Chinese or modern, broad avenues, subway, international hotels. At that time, the visit of the city followed a tour imposed by the Beijing authorities.

Tian'anmen: The square has the name of entrance gate to the Imperial Palace, it is symbolic for several reasons. It is the largest square in the world, it is from the top of the Sky gate from which Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic on October 01, 1949, it is the square of the students' revolution whose photographs were shown around the world by Internet. Three buildings border it, in the east the Palace of the Museums, in the west the Great Hall of the Peopleand in the south the Mao Mausoleum whose visit was imposed and behind the mausoleum, the two Qianmen strong bastions.

Imperial palace: The palace was designed according to the Buddhist world-vision concepts, the five cardinal points represented by the four gates of the enclosure and the fifth being in the centre, the palace of the Preserved Harmony. The whole covers 72 ha surrounded by an red wall 10m high protected by ditches 50m wide. The official buildings are arranged on the median axis, the walls are red colour, the tiles of the roofs are yellow glazed. The furniture may date from the Qing era. The private buildings are in the side parts of the city.
It is an extraordinary museum, the parts of the official buildings gather art pieces saved from the Cultural revolution.

Summer Palace: The palace is located at the foot of the Thousand-year-old Longevity and in front of the Kunming Lake. It was built by Empress Ci Xi in 1888. Partly burnt by an Anglo-French army, and restored by Ci Xi, the palace does not have the historical importance of the Forbidden City. According to a guidebook it is a "chinoiserie". The lake is rather romantic and that photos with the seventeen-arch bridge have made the palace very popular in tourist agencies.

Great Wall: It is the subject of all phantasms, it is seen from the Moon, a promoter would like to install a cable car for tired tourists. There started in 300 BC it was built and maintained constantly until 1644, when the Ming dynasty collapse. It is the symbol of the power of the Empire of the Middle, it certainly fulfilled its function, protection against barbarians, at the Xiongnu.
The trip to the carefully restored Huanghua section was the occasion to see the Chinese landscape meticulously cultivated and the congestion of the countryside roads.>

Temple of Heaven: Built in 1420, then restored after a fire in 1889, it is undoubtedly the most beautiful building: "It is the organization-concept spatial transposition of the cosmogonist and political world of imperial legitimacy".

Ürümqi: The city is the capital of the Uygur Autonomous Area of Xingjian. It is apart from the antique Silk Road. It is located 900m high in the north of the Celestial Mounts, Tian Shan. It is populated by Uygur, Han, Kazakh, Kirghiz, Hui speaking a vernacular language close to Uzbek. Islamization dates from the years 744-745. It has more than one hundred mosques among which the Shaanxi Mosque.
The Regional Museum of Xingjian presents two permanent exhibitions: archaeological objects of the Silk Road and cultural objects of the minorities.
In the south of the city, the visit of the White Poplar Gorge, Baiyang Gou, made it possible to see the nomad campsite and to have tea in yurts. The cascade of the gorge was a marvellous, noisy and refreshing spectacle.

Turpan: The different names of the city recall that the summer is torrid there. At the time ofour passage we had a night without sleep and water due to an insupportable heat. It is located like Ürümqi at the foot of Tian Shan. The city is attested as early as the Han, 206 BC. It is a large busy village thanks to the bazaar. It is pleasant to visit at nightfall and to walk to the oasis to find the freshness of the trellised vineyard.
The Minaret of Emin Khoja, one of the jewels of the Silk Road, was built in 1777, it is also called Su Gong Minaret, the name of the son who completed the construction. The circular tower is a dry brick cone.
The Tombs of Astana, dating from the Tang era, are the cemetery of inhabitants of the Goachang town. A narrow and abrupt passage goes down in each of them.
The Goachang ancient village: the ruins are impressive in a scenery of dunes. It was flourishing as early as the 2nd century BC, and disappeared in the 14th century AD.
The Thousand Buddha Caves, Qianfodong, are dug in cliffs of the burnt ochre mountain. The statues and paintings are dusty.

Dunhuang: The site is attested as early as the first century BC. The Mogao first caves were dug from 353 until the end of the 14th century. It is the vastest complex of Buddhist paintings and statues in the world. The cells were dug in cliff of the Mingsha mounts. Stein, the sinologist was the inventor of the site and brought back several thousands of documents. The collection of Paul Pelliot is exposed in the Guimet museum in Paris.
The crescent lake is accessible after the climbing of the Mingsha dune 250m high.

Lanzhou: Capital of Gansu, it straddles the two banks of the Hoang-ho river in a narrow valley of brown and desert mountains 1,510 m high. Its position is strategic on the ancient Silk Road for the loading of animal skin on boats. It was a craft industrial city, it has become an industrial city.

Wuquanshan: The park of the five-source mountains was set up on the slope of the Wuquanshan mountain. In this charming landscape two temples were built, one Buddhist Lamaist, the other Taoist. In the park, a zoo has pandas.

Provincial museum: The permanent exhibition in the first room presents collections of potteries dating from the Neolithic era. The bronze collection, a cortège of horse riders and floats is particularly remarkable, these museum pieces come from the tomb of a "Han" general.

Xian: Under the name of Chang'an, it was the capital for 1100 years of the Empire of the Middle. The construction of the city walls started in 194 BC and the emperor left the city in 880 AD. Then Chang'an changed its name into Xian, "Peace of the West".
The present walls date from the 14th century and have four gates positioned at the cardinal points according to Chinese cosmogony.
The Tower of the Drum, built in 1380, use to beat everyday at twilight.
The Tower of the Bell, built in 1384, sounded everyday at dawn. The building is on two floors with a wooden triple roof assembled by tenons and mortises.

The Great Mosque: Founded into 742, it is a place of gathering Hui, Chinese Moslems, recognizable with their barbs and white bonnets. Its architecture is Chinese with bricks walls and turquoise glazed tiled roofs.

The provincial museum of Shaanxi: The museum is in a former Confucian temple. The collections are remarkable for the Han period and more particularly the Tang period by the richness of the sculptures and the delicate figurines.
The forest of the steles: This unit is located on the median axis of the Confucius temple. It is the most important lapidary collection of China. The 1,300 tablets date back to 1087, date of the foundation of the Kaicheng Shijing conservation , engraving on stone of the Kaicheng classic whose knowledge was essential to the Scholars. One of the most famous relates the installation of the Nestorian community, engraved in Chinese and Syrian in 781.

Pagodas of wild geese: The pagodas of large and small wild geese were built in 650, each one is supplemented by a temple, Da Ci'en and Da Jainfu.

The buried army: The artificial Tumulus of the Emperor Qin Shihuangdi Mausoleum (221-210BC) formed part of a funerary unit including the "buried Army" several thousands of clay soldiers approximately 1,80 m tall whose features are all different,  equipped with armour, (the weapons were plundered) and accompanied by horses 1,50m tall.
The unit is extraordinary for its beauty and megalomaniac uselessness.

Canton: The "Guangzhou city", located at the far end of the estuary of the Pearl river, is the capital of the Guangdong province. As early as 214 BC emperor Qin Shihuangdi established a Commandery. The city owes its fame to the opium war which was introduced in China by the British in 1713, then to the blossoming of the revolution in the twenties and finally to Mao Zedong who gave courses there in 1924.

Memorial Sun Yat-Sen: It is an octagonal building with blue glazed tiles built in 1929 in a splendid park with varied tropical trees.
It is used by the provincial assemblies of the Guangdong autonomous Area.

Pagoda of the Six Banyans: Liurongsi or the Six Banyans temple is known for the Huata pagoda. This octagonal pagoda built in 537 has 9 external and 17 interior floors. The sight from the top offers an exceptional panorama.

Foshan: The Foshan hill was an important Buddhist centre at the Tang period.
The Temple of the Ancestors, Zucimiao a former Taoist temple is now a museum, located in a splendid park with rare trees species. It shows an important collection of funerary furniture of the Han period and head dolls of the Ming period.
The Renshousi Temple is the Foshan handicraft centre.

Hong Kong: The Hong Kong city, Xianggang, gathers the Hong Kong island, the Kowloon peninsula, the New Territories and approximately 235 small islands. At that time, the whole was under British administration, now I write, all these territories returned to China, on June 30, 1997 at midnight. Since, the territories have been managed by China according to the rule: "One government, two systems.".

Kowloon: The peninsula is the first contact of the traveller with Hong Kong, the tarmac of the airport is partly built on the sea and on the landing, the plane skins the large high buildings. It is the place of lacquers, ivories, electronic purchases and pleasures, night attractions are legion. At night, the streets life is fantastic with the illumination of the signs in Chinese ideograms. In summer, the monsoon torrential rains are quite as impressive by their promptitude as by the rain downpour.

Island of Hong Kong: The visit started with the rise of Victoria Peak, from where the sight on the bay was exceptional. The picturesque walk in the streets and lanes was a moment of amazement at the hustle and bustle, colours and smells.