Chaozhou Old Town

Historic Chaoshan City With The Guangji Bridge And The Arches Of Paifang Street · Chaozhou, Guangdong

The old capital of the Chaoshan region in eastern Guangdong, a city with its own language, opera, tea ritual and cuisine, and one of the most rewarding old towns in southern China. Its set piece is the Guangji Bridge over the Han River, begun in the twelfth century and unlike any other bridge in the country: stone piers carry pavilions across most of the span, but the central section could never be built, so eighteen wooden boats are lashed together each morning to close the gap and unlinked at night to let ships through. The old town behind it runs along Paifang Street, lined with more than twenty stone memorial arches rebuilt in the 2000s to honour local scholars and officials, and off it lie lanes of Chaoshan courtyard houses with ornate gables, the Kaiyuan Temple of 738, and the Hanwen Gong shrine to the Tang writer Han Yu, exiled here and still honoured for it. Chaozhou is also a food city: beef balls, oyster omelettes, marinated goose and gongfu tea served in thimble cups.

Paifang Street, Xiangqiao District, Chaozhou, Guangdong, China

Old town streets and Paifang Street free and open at all hours; the Guangji Bridge about 9:00-17:00 with its pontoon removed each afternoon, and a free light show in the evening.

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