Water Town, Water Town Everywhere…(i)

If you are planning on traveling to the Shanghai, Hangzhou or Suzhou area, chances are you are planning on visiting one of the famous “water towns” near these cities—small towns with classical Chinese architecture, irrigated by small canals going alongside the car-free streets. There are 5 water towns in this area that I think are worth noting: Zhouzhuang, Tongli, Wuzhen, Xitang and Nanxun.

The question is, which of these water towns is best to visit? Despite all of them holding the illustrious “AAAA Scenic Area” rating given by the relevant tourism officials, there are some that are better than others.

First, I have a few tips that apply to all the water towns. It is best to avoid visiting on the weekends and holidays, when the number of tourists make it difficult to walk the streets late in the morning. If you do go on a weekend, and even if it’s a weekday, you should plan on an overnight stay. With an overnight stay, you get the village to yourself when all the day trippers leave before dinner, and you also get the next morning’s quiet dawn to yourself before the tourists start arriving again. However, the villages are small, and you do not need to plan 2 full days at one of them. I suggest departing from Hangzhou, Shanghai or Suzhou after lunch on the first day, and then staying in the water town until after lunch on the next day. In these 24 hours, you should get to see most of the town.


Tongli

So, which of these water towns are most worthwhile to visit? As you can see by the pictures in this article, they are all quite similar, so travelers should enjoy any of them about the same. One way to decide is to see which town is closest to the other cities you will be visiting in China. For example, Zhouzhuang and Tongli are close to Suzhou. If you are visiting Shanghai and Hangzhou but not going to Suzhou, then it would not be logistically practical to visit these two water towns.


Xitang

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Water Town, Water Town Everywhere…(ii)

Posted at 03:51PM Oct 20, 2008 by admin in Laowai Talk  |  Comments[2]