Guangdong

Flat rice noodles dry-fried with silky marinated beef, beansprouts and spring onion over a fierce wok flame.

Stir-fried wide flat rice noodles with sliced beef, scallion, bean sprouts and a smoky wok-hei flavour.

Fujian's banquet centrepiece — a slow-simmered soup of dried abalone, sea cucumber, scallop, ham and 20+ other ingredients.

Whole goose roasted to crisp-skinned tenderness. The most prized of the Cantonese siu mei roasted meats.

Cantonese roast pork — marinated, hung in special ovens, glazed with honey and maltose. Eaten over rice or in buns.

Steamed white buns with a sweet-savoury BBQ pork filling. Two styles: traditional steamed and modern baked.

7d · Seven days focused on China's architectural output since 1990 — Shanghai's Pudong towers, Beijing's Olympic-era structures and Guangzhou's Zaha Hadid and Rem Koolhaas commissions.

10d · Ten days through the south: Hong Kong as the entry point, Guangzhou for Cantonese food culture, then the karst river landscape of Yangshuo and Guilin before flying home.

14d · Fourteen days moving through four of China's most distinctive regional cuisines — the numbing heat of Sichuan, the dry spice of Hunan, the freshness of Cantonese cooking, and the sweet-savoury balance of Shanghainese food.

14d · Fourteen days across eastern and central China using only high-speed rail — no domestic flights. A lower-carbon alternative that also provides a closer view of the country at ground level.