Xi'an: terracotta warriors and ancient walls

The Terracotta Army, discovered by chance by some farmers in 1974, deploys more than eight thousand life-size warriors, each with different facial features, buried to guard the tomb of the first Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang.

The Walls of Xi'an, among the best-preserved city walls in China, can be traversed by bicycle along the entire perimeter of fourteen kilometers, approximately an hour and a half of cycling above the historic center.

The Muslim Quarter, around the Great Mosque built in Chinese architectural style rather than Arab, comes alive every evening with street food stalls linked to the Hui community, Muslim for over a thousand years.

The Bell Tower, at the exact point where the four main axes of the old city intersect, once marked the hours of the day and today serves as the visual reference around which the entire center is oriented.

Eight thousand different faces carved two thousand years ago and fourteen kilometers of walls still bicycle-able tell the same ambition: to build something meant to last beyond those who ordered it.

The Muslim Quarter, loud and informal, is probably the only part of the day that doesn't pursue that same monumental ambition — and precisely for that reason it lingers in memory.