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Zhouzhuang was founded nearly a
millennium ago and was China's first "water town", organized around a grid of Venice-like canals and running under picturesque stone bridges. Hugely popular with Chinese tourists, who come here to step back into their own history, ZHOUZHUANG is less known by foreigners even though its an easy day trip from Shanghai.
Depart at 09:00 with your guide, car and driver. Today you will leave
the gleaming towers of New China and drift back into the past to one of the
country's best-preserved ancient waterway towns, now something like an endlessly
interesting time machine theme park for Chinese tourists that is largely undiscovered by foreigners. Park on the outskirts of town and take a pedicab ride (or a short walk if you prefer) into the center of old Zhouzhuang. Pass through a decorative gateway and experience the charms of an older way of life. Pagodas poke out over tiled roofs free of radar dishes or TV antennas, gracefully arching stone bridges create poetic reflections in jade green canals, old men roast savory skewers on charcoal grills, boatmen (and women) drift by on silent craft, wooden night soil buckets dry in the sun, roaming minstrels play traditional tunes or sing snippets of folk opera for tips.
Zhouzhuang is a walking museum where the majority of structures hail from the Yuan, Qing and Ming dynasties. Many of the old houses, gardens, and shops are open to the public even though they are still inhabited by local comrades. For a good primer on Chinese communal folk dwellings, visit Shen Ting (the Hall of Shen's Residence) with more than 100 rooms and courtyards. Especially interesting to Chinese tourists is the kitchen with its traditional utensils and antique state-of-the-art stove. Other homes worth wandering through are the Mi Lou House, Ze Ting, Zhang Ting, Yechucang Zhu, and Zhengu Tang (the Solid Faith Hall). These are all easily encountered as you wander around the old city. At the south end of town is the Quanfu Si, Temple of Total Well-Being and Nanhu Yuan where gold and bronze Buddhas meditate amongst pagodas and water garden bridges. Elsewhere is the Chengxu Daoyuan, Garden of Clear and Empty Paths, a Taoist temple dating from the Song dynasty.
You'll have a wide variety of traditional food and drink to snack on while here: try a cup of "Grandma's Tea", pale amber herbal stimulant steeping in a lidded porcelain teacup; shop houses everywhere proffer roasted pork legs constantly being basted with a thick molasses-like sauce; fresh-as-can-be dumplings steam away in towering stacks of bamboo baskets. Take a break at a quiet teahouse whose latticed windows open out onto the picture-perfect waterways.
If you have time, you might enjoy hiring a boat to drift through the canals. The Zhouzhuang Museum is also worth a visit. |
  
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