We stopped at the Centre for Research and Breeding of Giant Pandas, the largest in China. Here they are bred panda cubs and they are studying the characteristics to preserve the species. The Giant Panda in fact it is very easy-going and lazy, basically eats and sleeps, and has fun with his fellows. It is so lazy that needs even to be assisted for reproduction, and the death rate in the first few months is very high. Hence the many care and precautions taken against him. It remains definitely the animal that elicits more sympathy of all.

After Chengdu and its ten million inhabitants, we arrived, with summer heatwave and humidity soaring, in another provincial city, "only" six million inhabitants .... Xi'an. Known as one of the most important cities in Chinese history, Xi'an is in the list of the four great ancient capitals of China because it was the capital of no less than 13 dynasties, including the Zhou, Qin, Han and Tang. Xi'an is the eastern end of the Silk Road. The city has more than 3,100 years of history. We visited this morning the terracotta army, a collection of statues placed in the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor in Xi'an. It is a symbolic army, intended to serve the first Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang (260 BC - 210 BC) in the Hereafter.