Handpicked experience · Shanghai
Shanghai, China
A merchant rich enough to fund a city wall and exiled for offering more, a painting that turned a quiet town into a destination, and preservation by sheer inconvenience.
The oldest and most complete of the delta's canal towns
Houses that step straight down into the water
A merchant's mansion of forty rooms behind a plain street front
The bridge junction that a single painting made famous
Close enough to Shanghai for a half-day rather than a full one
A five-hour trip west from Shanghai to Zhouzhuang, the oldest and best known of the canal towns on this stretch of the delta: stone bridges, Ming and Qing houses standing directly on the water, and lanes narrow enough that the canals do the work of streets.
Roughly ninety minutes on the road in each direction, leaving a couple of hours in the town itself. Walking is flat but the bridges are crossed by steps, and the main lanes are tight. A short boat trip along the canals can usually be arranged on the spot.
The grandest house here was built by descendants of a fourteenth-century merchant who became, by most accounts, the wealthiest man in the country. He made his money in the delta's water trade, and when the first Ming emperor was walling Nanjing, he funded a substantial share of the construction. He then offered to pay the imperial army as well. The emperor took this as a private citizen presuming to buy the loyalty of soldiers, and had him exiled to the far southwest, where he died. The house has forty rooms and a hundred and more doorways, and none of it saved him.
Until the 1980s Zhouzhuang was a quiet place that few outsiders had heard of. Then a Chinese painter produced a canvas of its twin bridges, which was bought by an American industrialist and presented as a gift to Deng Xiaoping. The image circulated widely, a postage stamp followed, and within a decade the town had become a destination. Very few places can point to the exact painting that changed their economy.
The bridges in that picture sit at right angles where two canals meet, one with a round arch and one with a square one. Seen together from the correct spot they read as an old Chinese key — the square shaft and the round handle. They were built in the sixteenth century and the alignment is deliberate.
Zhouzhuang survived intact largely because it was inconvenient. Surrounded by lakes and canals on every side, it had no road worth the name until relatively recently, so there was never much pressure to widen a lane or knock a house down. What looks like careful conservation is substantially the result of two centuries of nobody bothering.
Weekends and holidays fill the main lanes completely; a weekday visit is a different town. Bring cash for the boat and anything you buy. Wear shoes for stepped bridges and uneven stone, and expect the water to be busy with punts around the middle of the day.
Open it to pick a date and work out the price.
What the fare covers, and what to budget for separately.
The practical detail, and the answers people actually ask for.
About ninety minutes each way by road, which is why the outing runs to five hours and leaves roughly two of them in the town.
A fourteenth-century trader reckoned the richest man in China. He funded a large share of Nanjing's city wall, then offered to pay the imperial army as well — and was exiled for the presumption.
A painting of its twin bridges was bought by an American industrialist and presented to Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s. The image spread, a stamp followed, and the town became a destination within a decade.
They meet at right angles at a canal junction, one arch round and one square. From the right spot they read as an old Chinese key, and the sixteenth-century alignment was intentional.
Because it was hard to reach. Ringed by water with no proper road until recently, there was never pressure to widen lanes or clear buildings, so the town simply stayed as it was.
A short canal trip can usually be arranged on the spot. Bring cash for it, and expect the water to be busy in the middle of the day.
Weekdays, by a wide margin. Weekends and public holidays fill the main lanes to a shuffle.