Nanxun Ancient Town

Silk Merchant Water Town On The Grand Canal; National 5A Tourist Attraction · Huzhou, Zhejiang

The wealthiest of the Jiangnan water towns, and the one that shows most clearly what silk money could buy. Nanxun sits on the Grand Canal between Huzhou and Suzhou, and in the nineteenth century its merchants made fortunes exporting fine local silk through Shanghai, then spent them on mansions that mix Chinese courtyards with European ballrooms, stained glass and imported red brick. The Zhang Shiming residence runs to more than two hundred rooms behind a plain wall, with a French-tiled ballroom at its heart; the Liu family's Little Lotus Manor surrounds a lotus pond with pavilions and a Western-style library; and the Jiaye Library, built in the 1920s, still holds one of the great private collections of Chinese woodblock books. Along the canals are the hundred-room row of riverside houses, stone bridges, a silk museum and lanes far quieter than those of the better-known water towns. Nanxun is bigger and calmer than Wuzhen or Zhouzhuang, and its gardens, libraries and merchant houses reward a slow half-day rather than a quick photograph.

Nanxun Ancient Town, Nanxun District, Huzhou, Huzhou, Zhejiang, China

Streets open and free; ticketed houses and gardens about 8:00-17:00 from April to October and 8:00-16:30 from November to March (check).

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