7-Day Senior Tour

Day 1 – Taipei City

• Fly into Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport near Taipei. By the time you’ve transferred to your hotel in the capital, we’ll have finalised a plan for the rest of the day that matches your interests and energy levels.
• Depending on time available and weather, this may include a look at Taipei Botanical Garden, a stroll around Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall (a landmark dedicated to Taiwan and Nationalist China’s former leader), or simply unwinding in a hot spring.

Day 2 – National Palace Museum and Yangmingshan Park

• We’ll spend as much of the day inside the magnificent National Palace Museum as you want, taking lunch if it suits your plans at the
  museum’s Silks Palace restaurant. The remainder of the day will be given over to touring sights in the northern part of the city. It’s a

  

  short hop from the museum to the Martyrs Shrine, where the hourly changing of the guard is a display of breathtaking precision.

• If the hills near this part of the capital are calling to you, we can drive up to Grass Mountain Chateau in Yangmingshan National Park. A former residence of Chiang Kai-shek, it was built in 1920. Even after a complete renovation less than a decade ago, it continues to look thoroughly Japanese, right down to the sliding doors. Another late-afternoon option is the observatory at Taipei 101 for sunset views over the city and beyond. Taipei 101 is in the heart of Xinyi District, the city’s most modern shopping area, so you can get some souvenir- and gift-buying done.
• If you’re in Taipei on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday or Saturday, think about taking in a show at Taipei EYE. To finish up the evening, we can bring you to that most Taiwanese of places: A local night market, where tasty snack foods are sold by outdoors vendors.

Day 3 – Taroko National Park

• We recommend making a reasonably early start and eating a hearty breakfast because we have a four-hour drive ahead of us. The journey can be broken with a stop at the hot & cold springs park in Jiaoxi in Yilan County, or a walk on the windswept Pacific-facing beach at Dongao. A good option for lunch en route is the acclaimed aboriginal restaurant Dageeli.
• Arriving in Taroko National Park around 2pm will give us time to visit the Eternal Spring Shrine and the Yanzikou Trail (Swallow Grotto) before checking into our preferred hotel at 4pm. The property has excellent food and spa services, outdoor and indoor pools, and is a short walk from Xiangde Temple.

Day 4 – Taroko National Park

• Today can be as energetic or as low-key as you like. Depending on your enthusiasm for walking and your passion for stunning natural landscapes, we can take you along the flat but very pretty Baiyang Trail, or to the Lushui Trail to glimpse macaques.
• If you’re the kind of person happy to enjoy the national park from a car seat, we’ll drive you to the best vantage points, and have lunch at Buluowan, a former Truku aboriginal settlement where there are demonstrations of indigenous handicrafts.

Day 5 –  Scenic Drive to Sun Moon Lake

• After breakfast, we’ll head into the higher reaches of Taroko National Park, stopping if you like for hot ginger tea at Bilu Sacred Tree, a 50m high, 3,200-year-old Lunta fir. We’ll make regular stops, including one at the road’s highest point (3,275m above sea level), so you can photograph the gorgeous scenery and stretch your legs. Lunch can be a feast of roast chicken and mountain vegetables – or a simple picnic nearly two miles above sea level.
• We expect to get you to the lakeshore around 4pm, in time for a delightful boat cruise around Sun Moon Lake to enjoy views of the water and the surrounding mountains.

Day 6 –  Sun Moon Lake and Tainan

• Almost everyone agrees that just after daybreak, as the sun climbs up over the nearby peaks, is a splendid moment to appreciate the beauty of Sun Moon Lake – but of course it’s up to you whether you want to sleep in or not. After breakfast and a brief tour of lakeside attractions like Cien Pagoda (built on the orders of Chiang Kai-shek to honour his late mother) we’ll say our goodbyes to the lake and head south to Tainan.
• Tainan served as Taiwan’s capital for more than 200 years and remains a bastion of tradition. We’ll check you into your hotel before dinner, and because the city is famous for its ‘little eats’, we’ll lay out all the options from fine dining to scrumptious street snacks. Afterwards, a craft beer on atmospheric Shennong Street or a coffee in the garden of Chihkan Tower (one of two forts built by the Dutch in the 17th century) are delightful ways to end the evening.

Day 7 –  Wrap Up

• Whatever time your flight out, we’ll help you make the most of your final day in Taiwan, visiting any major sights we didn’t get to the previous day, like Confucius Temple or Fort Zeelandia.
• Tainan HSR Station (where you’ll board the bullet train to the airport) is southeast of the city centre, and we can show you a couple of sights on the way. One is Xinhua Old Street, an authentic merchants’ thoroughfare from the 1920s. Another is Chimei Museum. Built around a local tycoon’s eclectic personal acquisitions, the museum has a world-class collection of violins, a huge number of  pre-firearm weapons and armour from Asia and Europe, plus sculptures and oil paintings of international significance.