Xitang Ancient Town

Jiangnan Water Town Famous For Its Covered Riverside Walkways; National 5A Tourist Attraction · Jiaxing, Zhejiang

A canal town on the flat lakelands between Shanghai and Hangzhou, distinguished from its rivals by more than a kilometre of covered riverside walkways - wooden colonnades roofed with tiles that run along the water, built so that traders, boatmen and shoppers could move through the town in sun or rain without getting wet. Nine streams meet here, crossed by more than a hundred bridges, and the lanes behind the waterfront are famously narrow: Stone Skin Alley is barely a metre wide for its whole length, paved with thin stone slabs worn smooth by centuries of feet. Merchant halls such as the Zhongfu Hall and the Wang family mansion show how prosperous the town became on rice, wine and buttons, trades still remembered in small museums, and Jiashan yellow wine is poured in the restaurants along the canals. Xitang found international fame when it appeared in the film Mission: Impossible III, and today its evenings draw crowds to bars and lantern-lit waterfronts, with visitors in flowing hanfu posing on the bridges. Mornings are the antidote: mist over the water, residents washing vegetables at the steps, and the covered walkways almost empty.

Xitang Ancient Town, Jiashan County, Jiaxing, Jiaxing, Zhejiang, China

Ticketed halls about 7:30-17:30 on weekdays and to 18:30 at weekends, with the ticket window closing about 17:00; a separate night ticket covers the evening, when the lanterns come on around 18:00.

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