Don't stay near the train station within the city walls; it is teaming with brothels and unsavoury characters.

Do go to the Muslim quarter for a fantastic cultural feast for your eyes and stomach. The quarter comes to life at night; go just before sundown so that you can visit the most unusual of mosques with an oriental design, hidden in a corner at the back of the main drag. Here you'll find restaurants and street hawkers and then you can bargain away in the goods market. Don't buy any warriors as they crumble before you've even got back on the plane.

By the drum tower within the city walls

I agreeI disagree

1.  
2. Send to friends

Be prepared to bargain hard for these Terracotta Warriors. We bought some from a shop in the night market and got them for what we thought was a bargain price of £5.
However, we bought some others from some hawkers at the Terracotta Army site at a fraction of the price (and the quality was only slightly inferior).

Xi'an night market and Terracotta Army site.

I agreeI disagree

1.  
2. Send to friends

I bought a few of those cheap fake (well, obviously not original out-of-the-tomb) warriors and they are well worth it. Cost about 50p each and retail at The Pier and similar places in the UK for about £20.

Anywhere around the site

I agreeI disagree

1.  
2. Send to friends

China never fails to throw out a surprise for you now and again. Xi'an was once the capital city and the starting point for the Silk Road to the Middle East and ultimately Europe. Xi'an was thus pollinated by a variety of influences and today it is still an oasis of Islam in a secular sea.

The Muslim Quarter has one of the best street markets in China for souvenir shopping, with trinkets on show from Little Red Books to Arab coffee pots and everything in between. It's also a great place to see life as it once might have been, when China was a centre of world trade much as it is now.

Xi Dajie, near the Bell Tower

I agreeI disagree

1.  
2. Send to friends