04. Viking China Yangtze River

The 2008 Olympics put a spotlight on China that’s changed the way many people see the country. Tourism used to focus on the parts of ancient China that have been preserved. Now, modern and future China are as much of a draw.

Our cruise trip to China gives us a taste of both. Its central feature is the cruise of the central portion of the Yangtze River from Wuhan to Chongqing. It’s a legendary river cruise; one of the most famous in the world, on a Viking River Cruise.

The Yangtze River is the third longest river in the world (3434 miles long, behind the Nile and the Amazon). It’s a legendary river cruise, with some of the most iconic scenery, especially the breathtaking ancient limestone cliffs of the Lesser Three Gorges. Now, the sightseeing along the cruise includes China’s modern feat of engineering, the massive Three Gorges Dam. We find both equally impressive in completely opposite ways.

The ‘yin and yang’ of ancient and strikingly modern repeats itself throughout our journey: Shanghai’s futuristic Pudong, with its record-breaking skyscrapers, a rickshaw ride in one of Beijing’s narrow-laned ‘hutong’ neighbourhoods.

The beauty of this cruise trip is that it includes both cities, and ancient Xian with its terra-cotta warriors, in pre- and post-cruise extensions as well as the Yangtze river cruise. It’s a complete package that takes care of all the details, hits the highlights of the best of the best of old and new China, and lets us experience so much more than the Yangtze river.

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