Ancient Waterfront Towns

I visited Luzhi Town as a short expedition during my day trip from Shanghai to Suzhou.

This town as well has everything the reviews of the other towns described. There are beautiful canals bordered by traditional houses, nice little bridges and a Chinese garden in the center of the old town. There are several restaurants, shops and of course places that rent out traditional costumes. I visited the Wansheng Rice Shop, some kind of agricultural museum. There is also a boat tour starting right next to the museum, but my otherwise so reliable Alipay app did not work to book that one. All in all the town is very photogenic and very pleasant to visit.

Luzhi is only a 40mins DiDi drive from Suzhou and one way cost me only about 10 USD. If you want to make it complicated and less time efficient, you can also take a bus from Suzhou main station. I had no problem at all to find a driver to bring me there and another one to take me back and drop me off in front of the Humble Administrator’s Garden.

I actually grew up in that region, but had never been to any of these renowned tourism spots. In the summer of 2023, I brought my family back, and picked Zhouzhuang (one of the four towns in this site) to visit. 

Zhouzhuang is a little town in the prefecture of Suzhou, who also houses the WH site of Classical Gardens of Suzhou, which we also visited. My parents drove us to Zhouzhuang and spent a good half-day. The town is a network of rivers and canals with numerous traditional residential buildings that are at least 200 years old. In fact a lot of people are still living in those buildings, but some chose to rent them out to shops and restaurants and live in the modern parts of the town.

The town is not huge. I suggest walking the streets first to feel its ambience, tour one of the nobility residences, then eat at one of the snack shops, and buy some local crafts, before taking a boat ride to experience the serenity of the town. Some of those restaurants and craft shops are a bit touristy, but others are authentically interesting. My daughter bought a landscape wall art piece entirely made of reed leaves by a local artist. My mom got a beautifully decorated vessel flute. We also ate some traditional snacks that I hadn't eaten for a decade. 

The boat ride was absolutely adorable. The canals are clean, and buildings well-maintained. Besides many tourists, we …

Have you seen the movie Mission Impossible 3 and ever wondered...wait, haven't? Okay, watch that first...done? Ok, good. So the last part of MI:3 was filmed in Xitang. You'd be surprised how many people think it is Suzhou because they think "canal + these bridges = Suzhou" as they went there for the gardens. Well, Suzhou has those canals and bridges but it is not the same. Also I heard people say that Suzhou would be the Venice of the East but actually that was the term also reserved for the water towns (and apparently Hoi An sometimes too). Seeing that the towns are so close to Suzhou I can understand the mistake. As a side note I booked the tour from Hangzhou but I bet public transport to at least one of the water towns is easy in this "Suzhou-Hangzhou-Shanghai delta".

I personally picked Wuzhen (as pictured) because for one the tour offering was better and second they told me this is the best preserved one of the four places. I think what they meant was that you get more shops but never mind that now.

When you go make sure it is not the deep summer. You will die of the humidity. The tour takes you on a boat ride through the village and then lets you freeroam for another hour or so. It is just enough time to stroll through the area, take pictures, avoid all souvenir shops and get a refreshing drink while doing so. The …