City guide · Zhejiang
Nine canals, 122 lanes, one long roofed corridor — and a town that still works for a living.
Reviewed by our Beijing team Updated 2026-10-10
The short version
City guide
Photographs from the coast, and what other travellers wrote afterwards.
Early, before anyone is about, walk on the flagstones and listen to your own footsteps and the occasional bird. You feel as if you are the young master of the house, born to own the whole courtyard. — 'Shanghai to Xitang'
A traveller's note in the source guide
Xitang is beautiful, and the rain made it more so — the misty Jiangnan feeling comes up off the water. Some people say rain ruins a trip; I say only the rain lets you feel the Jiangnan of mist and drizzle at all. — '2012: Hangzhou, Xitang, Wuyuan, three girls on the road'
A traveller's note in the source guide
Xitang is the water town for people who find water towns too tidy. Where Wuzhen and Zhouzhuang now run as attractions, Xitang kept its residents: people still get up at dawn, wash at the river steps, and shut the door at dusk. The town's own catchphrase runs: the water of the Spring and Autumn period, the town of the Tang and Song, the buildings of the Ming and Qing, the people of today. It is the last clause that makes it worth choosing.
Its character comes down to three things, and they are all structural. Bridges — beam, arch and zigzag, several of them visible from one another. Lanes — 122 of them, cut narrow as fire-breaks and named for what they are, the thinnest flagstones giving the Stone-Skin Lane its name. And corridors — the Mist and Rain Long Gallery, a roofed riverside street built house by house yet rising to one height line, so that it says nothing about who is rich and who is not.
The best advice in the source guide is also the simplest: come expecting a town, not a theme park, and behave like someone who lives here. Eat wontons at the roadside at eight in the morning, spend the afternoon on a riverside lounger, sit in a teahouse through the worst heat of the day, and stay up for Tangdong Street at night. There is no sight in Xitang worth rushing for; the town itself is the sight.
It is easy to reach, which is why it makes a good first water town — about 1.5 hours by coach from Shanghai and 2 from Hangzhou. Go in April for the azaleas, or go when it rains. The rain is not a problem: the covered corridor is the one place in a Jiangnan town built specifically for it, and the misty version of Xitang is the version people photograph.
Xitang
Seven things that are worth rearranging a day for.
Highlights
Nine rivers, eight districts, 122 lanes — and, unusually for a town of this size, people still living the old rhythm in it. Wuzhen and Zhouzhuang run as attractions; Xitang kept its residents. That single fact is the reason to choose it, and it changes what you do here.
The Mist and Rain Long Gallery is the town's signature: a covered riverside walk built house by house yet rising to one height line, so that it hides neither wealth nor poverty. It shades you in summer and keeps you dry in the rain, and in the rain it is the best place in town.
Yongning bridge for the view, Songzi Laifeng bridge for the couples' custom, Wolong bridge for the height it gained from a grieving monk, Anjing bridge for the traffic it still carries — and the fact that Tom Cruise ran across it in Mission: Impossible III.
122 lanes cut the town into fire-breaks and shortcuts; the Stone-Skin Lane is 0.8 m wide at its narrowest, between walls six to ten metres high. They are the reason Xitang feels older than it looks, and the best of them are the ones with no name on the map.
After dark the painted boats go out, the corridor lights up red, and lotus lanterns are set on the water at ¥1–8 a piece. Tangdong Street is the bar street, one small room after another with a guitar and a keyboard — nothing like a city's nightlife, and all the better for it.
Xitang made its name — and its buttons — from river shell, and the Button Museum shows all dozen steps of making one, sometimes with the craftsman at work. It is one of six little museums here, and taken together they are what separates Xitang from a row of shops.
Suggested routes
The standard loop: halls and bridges in the morning, the corridor at midday, gardens and lanes in the afternoon.
Arrive in the morning and enter by the Jijia Lane near the second car park. Start at the Zhang Zheng Root-Carving Museum, walk out to West Street and stop on the Anjing bridge for the view over the whole river.
Head east to the Burning-Hong-Kong canal for the Ni House and the Sheng Tang temple, then double back up to the Mist and Rain Long Gallery in time for lunch — the corridor is lined with snacks and riverside restaurants. After eating, stroll to the Zui Garden, cross the Huanxiu bridge to West Street, and take in the Stone-Skin Lane, the Zhangfu Hall, the West Garden and the Button Museum before leaving.
Stops: Zhang Zheng Root-Carving MuseumAnjing bridgeNi HouseMist and Rain Long GalleryZui GardenStone-Skin Lane
The way to do it: museums and the bar street on day one, the morning mist and the boats on day two.
Enter by Jijia Lane in the early afternoon and do the root-carving museum and the button museum first — take home a hand-made shell button as a souvenir. Cross West Street over the Anjing bridge, then east to the Burning-Hong-Kong canal for the Ni House and Sheng Tang.
By now it is late; pick an inn on or near Tangdong Street, the bar street, and give the evening to it. Sit on a riverside lounger, watch the lanterns come on, and set a lotus lantern on the water.
Stops: Root-carving museumButton museumAnjing bridgeNi HouseTangdong Street
Sleep in and eat Xitang food on Tangdong Street or West Street — but not too much, because the day is a long graze. Then head for the Mist and Rain Long Gallery and eat your way along it to the Zui Garden.
Cross the Huanxiu bridge to West Street for cakes, wontons and tofu pudding, walk the Stone-Skin Lane, glance into the Zhangfu Hall, and finish at the West Garden before leaving.
Stops: Mist and Rain Long GalleryZui GardenHuanxiu bridgeStone-Skin LaneZhangfu HallWest Garden
The route for people who want to stop moving: morning mist, teahouse afternoons, night boats, and a day at Jiaxing.
Enter, see the root-carvings, the buttons and some of the folk collections, then drift along West Street eating and looking. Cross the Anjing bridge, find a teahouse at the Burning-Hong-Kong canal and do nothing for an afternoon, then sleep on Tangdong Street to the sound of live music.
Stops: West StreetAnjing bridgeBurning-Hong-Kong canal teahouse
Get up early for the town's best hour and walk the corridor north over the Wolong bridge and back, buying street stinky tofu and tofu pudding for breakfast. Cross to North Gate Street and up the Yongning bridge for the rooftops and horse-head gables, then the Mist and Rain Long Gallery into the afternoon.
After lunch take a boat from the Songzi Laifeng bridge, visit the Zui Garden and the Memorial Temple to the Grain Escort King, and come back for the real event: the lit night, the river lanterns, the local opera on the water, and a second boat if you want one.
Stops: Wolong bridgeYongning bridgeMist and Rain Long GallerySongzi Laifeng bridgeMemorial Temple to the Grain Escort King
Take West Street unhurried — cakes, crafts, lanes, and the West Garden, the Wang House and the Xue House for anyone who likes old courtyard buildings. Leave by the main gate, walk the Wu Guniang park by the ticket centre, and buy yellow wine and eight-treasure cake at the supermarket on Youdian Road before you go. Or push on to Jiaxing's South Lake, 50 minutes by bus.
Stops: West StreetWest GardenWu Guniang parkYoudian Road supermarket
Sights
The signature
A roofed street along the river, known as the Mist and Rain Long Gallery — in effect a covered walkway, built by each household yet rising to a single height line, which is why it reads as even and unhurried rather than as a show of money. Brick and timber, shading in sun and sheltering in rain; the covered part leans out over the river, so walking it in a downpour, watching the water run off the eaves, is the most nostalgic thing you can do in Xitang.
Tip Come back at dusk when the lanterns go on; the same corridor in the same hour looks like two different towns.
The view
Nothing special in itself, but the best vantage point in the town: from it you look down on Xitang whole, which is why every photographer stops here. The north bank carries the Chaonan Dai corridor, a long dragon of a covered walk where people and bicycles pass beneath; across the river the backs of the West Street houses rise unevenly, and the tall fire-gables and grey-brick roofs and stone bridges all fall into one frame.
Tip Go for the rooftops and the horse-head gables, not for a selfie — the value of this bridge is looking out, not standing on.
The one couples walk
Built in 1637 as a three-span stone slab bridge, the story goes that a bird flew over as it was being built and the builders took it as an auspicious sign. Rebuilt in 1997 as a double gallery in the classical-garden style, with a partition wall, pierced windows and a passage each side. Newly married couples walk it left and right — the man's side for a son, the woman's for a daughter — so the bridge is also called the Couple's bridge.
Tip It is also the boat pier, so pair the crossing with a ride. On weekends local opera fans gather on the bridge to play and sing.
The tallest
A single-arch stone bridge and the tallest in the town, its square-capped posts and worn deck telling their own age. Historically it began as a small timber bridge in the Ming that turned treacherous in the rain; the story is that a bamboo craftsman named Zhu, having watched a pregnant woman drown on it, shaved his head, took up a mendicant's chain and begged for more than a decade to raise the money to build a stone bridge. It was begun in 1716 and finished after his death.
Tip Look at the carving on the arch ring, not just the top of the arch — the craft is the reward for stopping halfway across.
The centre of town
Built in the Ming on the Xutang river, the old boundary between two districts — it linked the two, hence 'Anjing', quieting the border — and it is still the middle of the old town's traffic. From it you can see the plain-beam Yongning bridge and the zigzag Wan'an bridge, so all three of the common southern bridge types fall into view at once. Tom Cruise ran across it and out to the Wan'an bridge in Mission: Impossible III.
Tip Stand on it for the bridge triple — it is the one spot where the town's three bridge forms line up, and the reason the guide recommends it first.
The town behind the front
The Stone-Skin Lane, 0.8 m at its narrowest between walls six to ten metres high, takes its name from flagstones thin as skin and is best after rain. The Zhangfu Hall is a Qing merchant's house named for the belief that sowing kindness reaps kindness. The Ni House, five courtyards deep off the Burning-Hong-Kong canal, was home to the modern official Ni Tianzeng. The Zui Garden, a three-courtyard scholar's garden, has 'three drunkennesses' to its name and holds a small print collection of the town.
Tip This is where the ¥100 ticket earns itself. Do the halls in the middle of the day when the lanes are hottest and the courtyards are at their coolest.
The odd ones
Xitang is a button town, working river shell into buttons since the days when every shirt needed them; the Button Museum in the Xue House on West Street has six halls and shows the whole process, more than a dozen steps from punching and polishing to drilling, bleaching and shaping, sometimes with the craftsman at work below — and the button he makes can go home with you. The Zhang Zheng Root-Carving Museum holds more than a hundred root pieces and a set of halls that keep their Republican-era doors, floors and staircases.
Tip These are the two things you cannot see in any other water town. Do them even if you skip the bigger halls.
Temples with stories
The Grain Escort King temple, called the Seventh Master's temple by locals, was built at the end of the Ming for a grain official named Jin who, passing through in a famine, gave away the grain he was escorting to keep the people alive and paid for it with his life; the throne reinstated him and the town built the temple, and his birthday on the third of the fourth lunar month draws a fair. The Sheng Tang, north on the Burning-Hong-Kong canal, was originally a shrine to the censor Pang Shangpeng and later took a statue of Guandi — and every New Year the town gathers here for toys, snacks and blessings.
Tip Their roofs and eave-timbers are unusual for temples — the grain-temple's大殿 carries the beams of a merchant hall, planed smooth. Look up.
The local story
A true love story is told here: in the late Qing the fifth daughter of the Yang landlord family at Tangdong village fell in love with a hired hand, Xu Atian, was opposed by her half-brother and died of it, and the tale was set to song and sung for a century. The Wu Guniang park at the west entrance to the old town, with its statue, its single-tile pavilion and its water stage, remembers her. Xitang also keeps a scatter of small folk museums — wood carving, root carving, costume, roof-tile, buttons, painting, yellow wine and lacquer — across the town.
Tip If you like courtyards, add the Wang House and the Xue House on West Street, and the eight-treasure and yellow-wine collections, before you leave.
Food
The town's defining smell, and better than it sounds: fried crisp outside, soft within, with house sweet sauce and chilli. Guan Laotai's is the famous one, ¥5 for eight pieces, with a faintly nostalgic tang. Only shops carrying the registered Guan Laotai mark are genuine — the official shop is at 92 Shiban Road, the rest are authorised sellers or impostors.
Served in a small bowl with a proper broth, pickles, spring onion and lard; the wrapper is thin as rice paper and the filling is fresh. The portion is tiny — a big appetite will treat one bowl as a warm-up. Lu's Xian De Lai, run by an elderly couple with two tables, always has a wait and is worth it; you can take it away.
Glutinous rice and a few pieces of cured pork wrapped in a lotus leaf, faintly green-scented and lightly salted, best eaten hot and much like a meat zongzi in texture. ¥5, and the old Ma stall past the Mist and Rain Long Gallery is the recommended one — do not expect the leaf to be full of meat, because it is not.
Xitang's traditional pastry, sold everywhere in many flavours — plain, osmanthus, mint, walnut, strawberry. Soft, sweet and chewy; most shops let you taste first, and it is worth buying the freshly cut kind rather than the pre-packed, which is noticeably better.
Sold wound around a stick in a small ball, more fun than food: you work the two sticks and the sugar together and you are eight years old again. The taste is entirely natural and not too sweet — the original, unadorned sugar flavour, and worth trying once even if only for the ritual.
Strong osmanthus with a light note of wine behind it, and it warms you through from the first sip; in summer there is a chilled version. Made from glutinous rice fermented with a starter, it is the south in a bowl — the old street-cry went: sweet — rice wine, want some? — sweet rice wine!
Xitang is fish-and-rice country with ponds strung across the flatland, and the white-thread fish comes out of Fen Lake. Steamed, the flesh is clean and sweet with almost no muddy taste; when the ingredient is this good, plain steaming is the best treatment, and the flavour is the proof.
The eight-treasure cake is made with eight herbs — Chinese yam, poria, gorgon nut, coix seed, malt, hyacinth bean, lotus seed and hawthorn — plus glutinous flour and sugar; dark, crisp and sweet, and one of the south's classic pastries. The yellow wine, from the Jiashan distillery founded in the Tongzhi reign, is mild and mellow, with the Shanniang grade the best of the Fenhu series.
Where to eat
Simple and local
A small restaurant converted from an old house, plain and unaffected, cooking local dishes that are good value and tasty — two people and three dishes is plenty. The host is a straight talker and the signature is the wonton-and-old-duck casserole, the wontons soaking up the broth and the duck soup full-flavoured. The salted-and-peppered pumpkin is crisp and good. Service is not fussy; at busy lunchtimes help yourself to the water.
Second floor, by the bar street
On the first floor a long passage, up the stairs and the room opens out; a small sign outside, so look for it or you will walk past. Clean and simple inside, red timber and white walls, blue calico and lattice windows. The cooking is proper Xitang food — the Songzi pork knuckle, soy-braised snails, salted-and-peppered pumpkin and steamed white fish; the flavour runs fresh and sweet. Sit by the window later on and the music from the bars below is at exactly the right volume.
Breakfast and snacks
A small constellation of wonton shops that locals rate over the tourist names: Da Butong, the green-nutrition wontons and the face-to-face wontons. Come for breakfast or a mid-afternoon bowl, and pair it with street snacks rather than a full meal.
Eat as you walk
Xitang is a town you eat in on the move: stinky tofu, lotus-leaf steamed pork, wontons, water chestnut cake, malt sugar and osmanthus wine, all within a few steps of each other along the corridor and West Street. Budget ¥5–7 a snack and graze rather than sit down for lunch on day two.
A drink, not a meal
Xitang people drink a little yellow wine with no particular reason, so the town carries plenty of small wine houses serving the local Jiaxing brews — huadiao, shanniang and the Fenhu series. Sit with a cup on the water and you have the whole point of the town in one hand.
Night and shows
Every evening
Setting lanterns on the water has always been Xitang's reserved activity for auspicious days, and near a thousand of them lit up at once give the water a colour it does not have by day. Any one of them is a wish, and with the thousand-metre corridor lit in red above, they are the best picture in the town. After dark almost every house sells them.
Tip Different colours carry different meanings, and the shop will tell you. Float them on the quieter water away from the boat routes.
On the water
A slow circuit of the town by boat once the lanterns are lit is the other half of the night: drift past the arches, learn a snatch of a local tune from your boatman, and let the lit corridor go by at walking pace. The West Garden, the Zhang Zheng Root-Carving Museum and the Button Museum all stay open during the evening session.
Tip Take the boat on your last night. On holidays and Friday–Saturday evenings there is also a ¥50 night ticket (17:00–20:30) for the three sights and the water performances.
Old meets new
Xitang's bar street is one narrow road, and it is nothing like a city's nightlife — no neon and no commitment to getting drunk, just a guitar and a keyboard in each room and singers working through songs everyone knows. The names run Hongting, Banjiao, Tangchao, Xifeng Shouma, Guanghui Suiyue and Xitang Fengyin; the guests can take the mic themselves, which beats karaoke for the backing.
Tip The town's habit is to sit in a riverside lounger first and move to the bars after; the two are minutes apart.
Holidays and festivals
The water stage stages Yue opera — 'The Five Daughters Pay Their Respects' among it — and the local field song 'The Fifth Daughter', with the villagers sitting on the far bank and visitors watching from the boats: stage and audience both part of the view. Running mainly on holidays and festival weeks.
Tip Watch from a boat if you can — the whole point is that the audience is part of the picture too.
Write to the future
Xitang is full of small shops selling postcards, hung with blue calico and water-town patterns and more inventive designs, and several offer a slow-mail service — write to your future self and let the town hold it for years. Sending a card home before you leave is the one sentimental thing the source guide insists on: the person has gone, but the heart stays.
Tip There is a post office at 68 Pingchuan Road if you want the official stamp rather than a shop's.
Sit and draw
You will see people at easels all over Xitang — pencil, oil, ink — drawing the town in front of them. Watching a painter not paint, brush hovering, is its own pleasure: they are just sitting still and listening to the town breathe. Stand behind one for a while and you become part of someone else's picture.
Tip If you want the least crowded view of the town, go where the painters go — they always pick the good angle.
Shopping
The town drinks it with no particular reason, and the biggest yellow-wine base in the country is the Jiashan distillery right here, founded in the Tongzhi reign: huadiao, shanniang and the Fenhu series in more than twenty varieties, mild and mellow, with the shanniang the best of them. Buy the genuine, reasonably priced kind at a proper town supermarket rather than a scenic-area stall.
The south's classic pastry: eight herbs plus glutinous flour and sugar, dark, crisp and sweet, made in Xitang and sold in food shops inside and outside the scenic area, where you can taste before you buy. Lighter and more original in flavour than a Western cake, and it travels well.
Pick up a blue-calico scarf on a whim — warm on the shoulders at night and a good accessory by day — or the folding fans, ornaments and small goods made from it. Plenty of patterns, hard-wearing, and unmistakably of the region; if you like it, take it.
Buy the freshly cut water-chestnut cake rather than the boxed kind, plus malt sugar, osmanthus wine and the other small local sweets. The food shops worth knowing include the Futang food factory, the Aniu and old Ma steamed-pork shops and the Xiangfu zongzi shop.
West Street and Tangdong Street are the two main shopping streets, packed with small shops selling crafts, clothing, postcards, blue calico, rough-weave scarves and silk quilts. Tempting, and the source guide's only warning is the obvious one: mind your wallet.
For cheap, honest, clearly priced shopping, go to Youdian Road outside the scenic area, where the town's own supermarkets and stores — Nonggongshang, Century Lianhua, Pacific and Jin Bali — sell local specialities at local prices. This is where the locals shop, and it is the better deal.
Where to stay
The default
Guesthouses inside the scenic area are mostly private, generally with air-conditioning, hot showers and old furniture. Riverside rooms cost a good deal more and are the ones that sell out; rooms set back off the water are quieter and still close to the main streets. In high season riverside rooms go fast and the price jumps, so book ahead and haggle. Most guesthouses will meet you and walk you into the scenic area through a side lane.
Two minutes from everything
Two minutes' walk from the Mist and Rain Long Gallery and the bar street, in a courtyard with solid timber tables and chairs in proper old style. Rooms run doubles, family rooms, four-beds and six-beds, the four- and six-bed dorms being the value options with private bathrooms, air-conditioning and TV. Wi-Fi covers the lounge, there are two free computers, and there is table football — built for younger travellers.
Warm and small
In Jijia Lane inside the scenic area: rooms warm and clean with a Jiangnan touch, not large but with everything you need — air-conditioning, water heater, good Wi-Fi — and the proprietress, Xiao Yu, is famously helpful.
Converted from a Ming-Qing house
Built out of a Ming-Qing courtyard house, with the West Garden and the Huanxiu bridge at the door — and because it is not on a main street, the noise does not reach the rooms. Carved four-poster doubles and comfortable twin rooms, with front and back courtyards for idling: put the town's snacks on the stone table, sit on a stone stool and watch the water-wheel turn.
On the bar street
On the bar street inside the scenic area, busy at night — the ground floor is a bar, so you can drink and go straight upstairs to sleep, or take afternoon tea with music downstairs. Ask for a riverside room and watch the lights on the water before bed; Wi-Fi, air-conditioning and hot water included. For something quieter, there is a branch at the Jianxin Road junction.
Quiet, with a lotus pond
A small Western-style house near the scenic area, reached by crossing the nine-turn bridge — a quiet three-storey courtyard with free parking beside a big lotus pond and a zigzag bridge over it, lovely in summer. Oddly placed and hard for outsiders to find, which is exactly the point; the owner is helpful and will lead guests into the scenic area. From ¥105.
Getting around
Xitang has no airport. Shanghai Hongqiao is the closest, and the usual route is to land there and take a coach in from the South or General station. Hangzhou Xiaoshan and Shanghai Pudong also work, with a longer transfer by coach or high-speed rail.
The nearest station is Jiashan; Jiashan South is the high-speed station. Buses run to Xitang from Jiashan coach centre and from Jiashan station. You can also come via Jiaxing station or Jiaxing South and change at Jiaxing North coach station for the direct bus.
The easiest way in from three directions. Shanghai, Hangzhou and Suzhou all run direct coaches, and although there is no station in the town, the coach stations are a short walk from the scenic-area gates.
Boats are the town's second road and are managed by the scenic area, so tickets are bought with your entrance ticket at the Songzi Laifeng bridge pier. Day and night are priced differently, and the night boat is the one worth paying for.
You do not need to memorise a route — the town is small and the sights sit on both banks of the river, so following the water gets you everywhere. The other option is a pedicab guide: driver and guide at once, and they know private sights you would not otherwise find. About ¥15 a circuit; refuse anyone who quotes high or raises the price mid-ride.
Taxis flag at ¥8 and the run from the city to Xitang is ¥40–50; from the high-speed station it is ¥70–80. Driving in is straightforward from Shanghai, Hangzhou and Suzhou by expressway, with Xitang signposted from the Jiashan exits.
Tips
The single most useful line in the source guide: Xitang is small and the main sights are on both banks, so walking along the water naturally takes you past all of them. There is no loop to plan, and planning one defeats the point.
The town's best features are the morning, the dusk and the night. Go up to the covered bridges in the evening — the dark river and the red lanterns are what people remember, and neither exists in the middle of a day trip.
If you come in summer, repellent is not optional — spray it on your clothes as well as your skin — and add sunscreen and anything that helps with heat. The flat water country is humid and hungry for blood in the warm months.
The pedicab drivers are half guide and know private sights worth finding. A fair price is about ¥15; anyone quoting high or adding on part-way through should be left standing, exactly as the guide warns.
The local opinion is unanimous: buy local products at the town supermarkets on Youdian Road outside the scenic area rather than at stalls inside, where prices run higher. Yellow wine and eight-treasure cake in particular are cheaper and just as good outside.
Xitang's food is street food: ¥5–7 a stall, a few steps between each. The mistake is to book a big lunch and then have no room for the corridor's snacks. Graze the长廊 instead, and stop for the boat and the gardens when you need a break.
Practical
Xitang is the water town to come to without a plan. Follow the river, eat as you walk, and be outside at dawn and after dark — the middle of the day is for a boat, a teahouse or a nap.
| Best months | April for the azaleas; all seasons work. North subtropical monsoon, average 15.9°C, about 1,169 mm of rain, about 2,017 hours of sun — spring wet, summer hot, autumn dry, winter cold |
|---|---|
| Tickets | Old-town entrance ¥50; combined ticket ¥100 covering 11 sights; night ticket ¥50 on holidays and Friday–Saturday 17:00–20:30 covering three sights |
| Opening hours | The old town is open around the clock; the ticketed sights close in the early evening; the night session runs 17:00–20:30 on holidays and Friday–Saturday |
| Boats | Hired at the Songzi Laifeng bridge pier — day ¥150 a boat (10 people); night single seat ¥20 with a ticket, ¥30–40 without; whole night boat ¥150 with a ticket; scull hire about ¥80/hour |
| Getting in | Coach from Shanghai ¥32 (about 1.5h), Hangzhou ¥37 (about 2h), Suzhou ¥37; or rail to Jiashan then bus K215/K216 or K210; Jiaxing North K152 direct ¥7 |
| Local | Walk everywhere; pedicab guide about ¥15 a circuit; taxi ¥8 flagfall, ¥40–50 from the city, ¥70–80 from the high-speed station |
| Streets to know | Tangdong Street (bar street), West Street (shops and sights), North Gate Street (Yongning and Wolong bridges), Shiban Road (genuine Guan Laotai tofu) |
| Useful numbers | Scenic-area ticket line 0573-84567890; police 0573-84563110; complaints 0573-84561502; local tourism bureau 0573-84051922 |
Background
The story goes that in the Spring and Autumn period Wu Zixu, opening up water transport for the salt trade, cut the Wuzi canal and led water down from the hills north of Xushan into this flatland — which is why Xitang is also called Xutang, the XU pond. Being flat and open, it took two more nicknames, Pingchuan and Xietang.
By the Tang Kaiyuan era there were already villages here, built along the water; in the Southern Song the villages began to form a market; in the Yuan a market town emerged by the water and trade began to flourish; by the Ming and Qing it was a major handicraft and commercial town of the south. The town's own summary of itself is the neatest line about it: the water of the Spring and Autumn period, the town of the Tang and Song, the buildings of the Ming and Qing, the people of today.
Xitang is one of the six great water towns of the south, in Jiashan county, Jiaxing, on flat ground thick with rivers. Nine waterways meet inside the town and cut it into eight districts, which the bridges then stitch back into one — the old names for the shape are 'nine dragons cradling a pearl' and 'eight directions of wind'. Flat, well-watered and quiet by nature, it sits at the southern edge of the northern subtropics, in the East Asian monsoon belt, alternating winter and summer winds, four seasons clear, at an average of 15.9°C and about 1,169 mm of rain a year.
The lanes are the other half of the structure: 122 of them across the town, long and narrow, fire-breaks as much as passages. The old distinction is worth knowing — lanes under the eaves were called nong, paths inside temples tang — and Xitang still keeps both senses. It is these lanes, and the covered corridors that rise to one height line, that give the town the texture the newer water towns have sanded off.
Xitang is on the preparatory list for world cultural heritage, one of China's first historic and cultural towns, and a favoured location for water-town film work. But its real distinction now is simply that people still live in it. The majority of residents are Han, the manners are warm and direct, and the sound of the oars is still a working sound rather than a staged one.
That is also the deal it offers the visitor: it is not set up to perform for you, so you get more out of it by adjusting to it. Come at the wrong hours expecting a show and you will find an ordinary small town; come at dawn and dusk, slow down, and the ordinariness is exactly the thing that is worth the trip.
The questions visitors ask us most about Xitang, answered plainly.
Prices and practical details are reviewed every month by our Beijing team and updated the day a rule changes.
April is the best month — the azaleas are out and the temperature is kind — but Xitang genuinely works in every season: spring flowers, autumn mist, June crab in summer, and the Spring Festival in winter. The best hours of any day are the misty morning and the lit evening, which is why staying overnight matters far more here than in most towns.
Yes, and for different reasons. Wuzhen is polished, lit and staged; Xitang is ordinary and lived-in, with residents still keeping the old rhythm. If you want the show, go to Wuzhen; if you want the sense of a working canal town and a lower price tag, pick Xitang. The two are about 45 minutes apart by shared car, so doing both is possible.
The old town alone is ¥50, and the sights check, so you cannot dodge into them. There are no separate small tickets any more — the ¥100 combined ticket covers all eleven sights. In the past people slipped in through a side lane in the evening; the guards have tightened, and to take a boat you need the ticket anyway. If you only want the lanes, the ¥50 pass is enough.
They are hired by the boat from the pier at the Songzi Laifeng bridge. By day it is ¥150 for a boat of up to ten people with a ticket. After dark a single seat is ¥20 with a ticket, ¥30 without on Sunday to Thursday, and ¥40 without on Friday, Saturday and holidays. Hiring a boatman to scull you is about ¥80 an hour.
The street food. Genuine Guan Laotai stinky tofu is ¥5 for eight pieces, crisp outside and soft in, with house sweet and chilli sauces — only shops carrying the registered mark are real, and the official shop is at 92 Shiban Road. Then small wontons (Lu's Xian De Lai draws the queue), a lotus-leaf steamed pork for ¥5, water chestnut cake, malt sugar, osmanthus rice wine, and steamed white-thread fish from Fen Lake.
In one of the old-town guesthouses, and ideally facing the water — though riverside rooms cost more and go fast in high season, so book ahead and haggle. Hostels start at ¥45 a bed, riverside doubles usually ¥100–160, and courtyard houses converted from Ming and Qing buildings run a little more. Many guesthouses will meet you and walk you into the scenic area through a side lane.
By coach. From Shanghai's South and General bus stations, direct services run roughly every 40 minutes to 2 hours from about 07:10 to 18:30 for ¥32 in about 1.5 hours; the tourist centre coach is ¥140 return with a guide. From Hangzhou's Jiubao centre, about ten a day for ¥37 in about 2 hours. For the return, a train from Jiashan South high-speed station has the most services.
The old town itself is open around the clock, and the night is one of the best things about it — the boats run, the corridor fills with lanterns and the bars of Tangdong Street stay open late. The ticketed sights close in the early evening, though on holidays and Friday–Saturday evenings there is a ¥50 night ticket (17:00–20:30) covering the root-carving museum, the button museum and the West Garden, with music and local opera staged on the water.
Plan this trip
The same places, with a driver, an English-speaking guide and the tickets already bought.
City guides
Dalian
City guide · 15 tours
The Northern Pearl — China's most romantic coastal city.
Shenyang
City guide · 12 tours
Where the Qing dynasty began — an imperial palace, a warlord's mansion and the cheapest good food in the northeast.
Changbai Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
A volcano on the North Korean border, a jade-green crater lake at 2,189 m, and hot springs on the way down.
Kunming
City guide · 12 tours
China's Spring City — a mild plateau capital of flowers, markets and the Stone Forest, with gulls on the lake in winter.
Dali
City guide · 12 tours
A walled Bai town between a 4,000 m mountain and a great lake — wind, flowers, snow and moon, and life at a slower speed.
Shuhe
City guide · 12 tours
The quiet version of Lijiang — a Tea Horse Road village of canals, stone bridges and slow afternoons, 4 km from the crowds.
Lijiang
City guide · 12 tours
A UNESCO Naxi old town of canals and cobbles beneath a 5,596 m snow mountain — the cultural heart of north-west Yunnan.
Xiamen
City guide · 12 tours
A subtropical island city of temples, fishing-village lanes and the best street food in Fujian — with the car-free islet of Gulangyu a 20-minute ferry away.
Gulangyu
City guide · 12 tours
A car-free island of colonial villas, pianos and cats, twenty minutes off Xiamen — and the one place where the trick is simply to stay the night.
Fuzhou
City guide · 12 tours
A 2,200-year-old capital of banyan trees and mountains-within-the-city, where the Ming lanes of Sanfang Qixiang meet the dockyard that built China's modern navy.
Lugu Lake
City guide · 12 tours
A 2,680 m lake on the Yunnan–Sichuan border, home to China's last matrilineal people, pig-trough canoes and a great deal of doing nothing.
Xishuangbanna
City guide · 12 tours
China's tropical south — rainforest, wild elephants, Dai villages and the Mekong, wrapped around the gateway city of Jinghong.
Shangri-La
City guide · 12 tours
A Tibetan town at 3,300 m in Yunnan's Diqing prefecture — monasteries, grassland, prayer wheels and cold thin air.
Nanchang
City guide · 12 tours
Jiangxi's 'hero city' on the Gan River — one great Tang pavilion, a 160-metre Ferris wheel, and the best claypot soup you will eat in China.
Hefei
City guide · 12 tours
Anhui's 2,000-year-old capital: the hometown of China's model judge, a moat-turned-garden ring, and the fast rail gateway to Huangshan.
Hongcun
City guide · 12 tours
A 900-year-old Hui village laid out as an ox, with water running to every door and a mirror-still crescent pond at its heart.
Wuhan
City guide · 12 tours
Three towns, two rivers and the best breakfast in China — a huge, blunt river city of bridges, lakes and cheap, brilliant street food.
Changsha
City guide · 12 tours
Hunan's loud, young capital: a 3,000-year-old city that eats chilli-hot food, stays up all night and treats foot massage as a civic duty.
Fenghuang Ancient Town
City guide · 12 tours
The stilt-house river town of Shen Congwen's 'Border Town' — glowing lanterns, stepping stones and the best two nights in western Hunan.
Lushan
City guide · 12 tours
A cloud-wrapped granite mountain with a Victorian hill station on top, waterfalls in three tiers, and the mist that Su Shi said you could never see through.
Wuyuan
City guide · 12 tours
China's 'most beautiful countryside' — dozens of white-walled Huizhou villages strung along streams and terraced into the hills, and two weeks a year of gold.
Mount Heng (Hengshan, Hunan)
City guide · 12 tours
The South Great Peak: a pilgrimage mountain of 72 summits where the temples run all the way to the top, and the sunrise over the cloud sea is the whole point.
Huangshan
City guide · 12 tours
Yellow Mountain: 82 granite peaks of twisted pines and grotesque rock, a sea of cloud that changes by the hour, and hot springs at the foot.
Wudang Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
The Taoist first mountain of China — a gilded bronze hall on a 1,612 m summit, temples hung off cliff faces, and the birthplace of tai chi.
Luoyang
City guide · 12 tours
Thirteen dynasties, 100,000 Buddhas carved into a river cliff, China's first Buddhist temple — and a whole city that turns peony-pink every April.
Yuntai Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
A UNESCO geopark in Henan where red-stone gorges squeeze a river to a slot, a 314 m waterfall drops in one plunge, and every path leads to another pool.
Rizhao
City guide · 12 tours
A low-key Shandong beach town where the sun rises straight out of the Yellow Sea, the sand runs 60 km and a seafood dinner costs less than a coffee in Shanghai.
Yantai
City guide · 12 tours
A northern Shandong port of fairy-tale cliffs, wine cellars and long golden beaches — where emperors once hunted the elixir of life and China's wine industry still begins.
Lianyungang
City guide · 12 tours
A working Jiangsu port with a myth in the middle of it — the Flower-Fruit Mountain of Journey to the West, a sea causeway to a big island beach, and some of the cheapest seafood on the coast.
Sanqing Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
A vertical forest of granite pillars in Jiangxi — the Python Out of the Mountain, the Goddess of the East Sea, two cable cars and a cliff-hugging walkway at 1,660 metres.
Tianjin
City guide · 12 tours
Beijing's port city next door — a river of 24 bridges, 2,000 colonial villas, and the best street breakfast in northern China.
Datong
City guide · 12 tours
A frontier capital of carved Buddhas — the Yungang Grottoes, a temple pinned to a cliff, and the oldest wooden tower in China.
Taiyuan
City guide · 12 tours
Shanxi's provincial capital and noodle heartland — the spring of Jinci, two Ming pagodas, and a museum that explains the whole province.
Pingyao
City guide · 12 tours
China's best-preserved ancient walled town — a Ming wall, the first Chinese bank, and two temples of painted clay just outside the gates.
Wutai Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
China's foremost Buddhist mountain — fifty-plus temples in one valley, crowned by five flat-topped peaks up to 3,058 m.
Hulunbuir
City guide · 12 tours
China's finest grassland — a 263,000 km² sweep of steppe, birch forest and border river, best driven with the windows down.
The Forbidden City
City guide · 12 tours
Beijing's 600-year imperial palace — 8,700 rooms behind a 72-hectare wall, and the largest surviving wooden palace complex on earth.
Sanya
City guide · 12 tours
China's only true winter-sun coast — four very different bays, a coral island and a 108 m sea Buddha, all at 18° north.
Haikou
City guide · 12 tours
Hainan's capital is the island's living city — 600-year-old arcade streets, a volcanic village, and a morning-tea-to-midnight food culture.
Beihai
City guide · 12 tours
24 km of fine white sand on one side, a volcanic island of coral and lava on the other — plus a 19th-century arcade old street in between.
Nanning
City guide · 12 tours
Guangxi's green capital is a gateway to Detian Falls, Beihai and Vietnam — and a genuinely excellent food city if you let it slow you down.
Guangxi
City guide · 12 tours
One autonomous region, a dozen landscapes — limestone peaks and rice terraces in the north, a Vietnam border and a warm gulf coast in the south.
Huizhou
City guide · 12 tours
A free West Lake, a Taoist mountain and 200 km of white-sand coast — the Pearl River Delta's most underrated weekend.
Beidaihe
City guide · 12 tours
Northern China's classic beach escape — one sunrise headland, 10 km of calm swimming water, and a bird flyway overhead twice a year.
Shanhaiguan
City guide · 12 tours
The town where the Great Wall stops being a rumour of mountains and walks into the Bohai Sea.
Baiyangdian
City guide · 12 tours
The biggest freshwater lake on the North China Plain — and almost none of it can be reached except by boat.
Qinhuangdao
City guide · 12 tours
126 km of Bohai coast in one municipality — a working port, two famous resorts, and the only desert dunes that meet this sea.
Yesanpo
City guide · 12 tours
Gorge country where the Taihang and Yan ranges collide — 52.5 km of canyon walls, a cave that spits fish, and a river to fall off.
Zhuhai
City guide · 12 tours
The delta's slow city: a 28 km promenade, 146 islands, oysters fattened where the river meets the sea.
Wuyi Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
Nine bends of clear water, red sandstone cliffs, and the tea that made a mountain's name.
Jiuzhaigou
City guide · 12 tours
108 mineral-blue lakes in one 55 km valley — the place that ruins water everywhere else for you.
Mount Siguniang
City guide · 12 tours
Four snow peaks, three valleys, and the friendliest 5,000 m mountain in China to stand on top of.
Hailuogou
City guide · 12 tours
A glacier that comes down to 2,850 m, hot springs in the forest, and Gongga Shan filling the sky above both.
Daocheng Yading
City guide · 12 tours
Three 6,000 m sacred peaks, glacial lakes at 4,600 m and twenty hours of road — the hardest, highest payoff in Sichuan.
Shunan Bamboo Sea
City guide · 12 tours
Seventy thousand mu of bamboo over twenty-eight hills, a red sandstone corridor under a closed green roof, and a banquet made entirely of bamboo.
Dujiangyan
City guide · 12 tours
Not a monument but a machine: three pieces of engineering with no dam, still doing their job after 2,270 years.
Qingcheng Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
The mountain where Daoism was organised, and the one Chengdu escapes to when the basin turns into an oven.
Qingdao
City guide · 12 tours
Red-tiled roofs, cold beer and a granite mountain that walks straight into the sea — the easiest good time on the Yellow Sea.
Mount Tai
City guide · 12 tours
1,545 metres, 6,290 stone steps and three thousand years of emperors — the one mountain in China that is also a document.
Jinan
City guide · 12 tours
A provincial capital with 700 springs under the pavement — people still queue at the spouts to fill their kettles.
Weihai
City guide · 12 tours
1,000 km of clean coast, a free bathing beach, the island where the Beiyang Fleet died — and thousands of wild swans every winter.
Qufu
City guide · 12 tours
One family, two thousand years of steles, and a ¥150 pass that covers the lot — the easiest serious day trip in Shandong.
Penglai
City guide · 12 tours
China's immortals' coast — a Song-dynasty naval harbour you can walk for free, a mythology nobody ever found, and the ferry to 32 islands.
Changdao
City guide · 12 tours
32 islands, one causeway, a ¥150 land pass, tens of thousands of gulls and nowhere you can drive — the place where everything happens by boat.
Nanjing
City guide · 12 tours
Capital of six dynasties, capital of the Republic, and the city that eats more duck than anywhere else on earth.
Suzhou
City guide · 12 tours
Two thousand five hundred years of canals, sixty surviving gardens, and a city that shuts its gates at half past five.
Zhouzhuang
City guide · 12 tours
Nine hundred years, fourteen bridges, one ticket — and a town that only makes sense before eight in the morning.
Tongli
City guide · 12 tours
Fifteen canals, seven islets, forty-nine bridges — and a town that still gets up at dawn because it lives here.
Wuxi
City guide · 12 tours
Taihu on one side, a Grand Buddha on the next hill, and ribs sweet enough to argue about — the most underrated city on the Yangtze delta.
Yangzhou
City guide · 12 tours
A city built by salt merchants who had more money than restraint — gardens, a narrow lake, and the best breakfast in China.
Zhenjiang
City guide · 12 tours
Three hills, one ferry landing, and an unreasonable share of Chinese literature — the Yangtze city people drive past.
Changzhou
City guide · 12 tours
A 2,500-year-old canal city that built a dinosaur park and refuses to apologise for it.
Wuzhen
City guide · 12 tours
A town that is two towns: the older, quieter East Zone and the lit-up West Zone you sleep inside.
Hangzhou
City guide · 12 tours
A lake in the middle of a city, a tea village in the hills, and two thousand years of getting the mood right.
Xixi Wetland
City guide · 12 tours
Ten square kilometres of marsh inside Hangzhou, and the only way into half of it is a boat.
Ningbo
City guide · 12 tours
A 7,000-year-old port with Asia's oldest private library, a free waterfront 20 years older than Shanghai's, and the best seafood before the islands.
Mount Putuo
City guide · 12 tours
A Buddhist island with no cars, three great temples and a ¥10 lunch that is the point of the place.
Qiandao Lake
City guide · 12 tours
A thousand islands that did not exist sixty years ago, and the cleanest big-lake water in China.
Shaoxing
City guide · 12 tours
Two and a half thousand years of water-town China, and Lu Xun's house is free.
Zhoushan
City guide · 12 tours
1,390 islands, one road bridge in, and a harbour that lands more fish than almost anywhere on earth.
Hengdian
City guide · 12 tours
A backlot the size of a town, where the palaces are copies and the film crews are real.
Yandang Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
A volcano that weathering turned into scenery — 500-odd sights of peak, cave and waterfall across eight scenic areas.
Zhejiang
City guide · 12 tours
One small, mountainous, absurdly rich province that holds a lake, two canal towns, a Buddhist island and a dead volcano.
Hong Kong Outlying Islands
City guide · 12 tours
Two hundred-odd islands, half an hour of ferry from the financial district, and not a car on three of them.
Hong Kong Shopping
City guide · 12 tours
A duty-free port where the tag starts lower, two citywide sale seasons knock a third off, and every mall sits on an MTR exit.
Macao
City guide · 12 tours
Four hundred years of Portuguese streets, a fake Venice under a painted sky, and the best egg tart in Asia.
Urumqi
City guide · 12 tours
The city furthest from the sea, with a snow range on its doorstep and dinner starting at nine.
Hong Kong SAR, China
City guide · 11 tours
A harbour skyline you already know by heart, dim sum trolleys at dawn, and 260 islands an hour from the neon.
Taiwan, China
City guide · 11 tours
Night-market alleys, high-mountain railways, and a coastline that changes character every hundred kilometres.
Qinghai Lake
City guide · 12 tours
A 4,400 sq km inland sea at 3,200 m, ringed by rapeseed gold, prayer flags and the best cycling road in China.
Mount Emei
City guide · 11 tours
A 3,099-metre Buddhist summit you can reach by cable car before lunch — and a mountain full of monkeys that will absolutely rob you.
Beijing
City guide · 11 tours
Six centuries of imperial red walls, a Great Wall you can climb before lunch, and the best roast duck on earth.
Taipei
City guide · 11 tours
A 24-hour bookstore, a night market that never stops sizzling, and a city that apologises when you bump into it.
North Xinjiang
City guide · 11 tours
Alpine lakes the colour of poured enamel, a village of log cabins under birch trees, and the last tear the Atlantic ever sheds.
Lanzhou
City guide · 11 tours
A city split in half by the Yellow River, where beef noodles are a breakfast ritual and the Silk Road still runs through the streets.
Mount Hua
City guide · 11 tours
Five granite peaks, one plank road bolted to a cliff face, and a sunrise that justifies the 2am start.
Dunhuang
City guide · 11 tours
A desert oasis where Buddhist cave art survived a thousand years and a crescent lake refused to dry up.
Gannan
City guide · 11 tours
433 kilometres of the Yellow River's first bend, a 3.5 km prayer-wheel circuit, and Tibetan grasslands almost nobody has commercialised yet.
Sichuan–Tibet Highway
City guide · 11 tours
2,142 kilometres of cliff-edge switchbacks, four of China's most beautiful mountains, and a road the Tibetans walk on their knees.
Kangding
City guide · 11 tours
The town that gave Asia its most famous love song, a 7,556m sacred peak on its doorstep, and the last real Tibetan town before the road climbs to Lhasa.
Lhasa
City guide · 12 tours
A city of prayer wheels and butter lamps at 3,700 metres, where the sun shines 3,000 hours a year and the world's highest palace watches over it all.
Nyingchi
City guide · 11 tours
Tibet's greenest corner — peach blossom valleys, a 7,782 m peak that hides from almost everyone, and the world's deepest canyon.
Namtso
City guide · 11 tours
A 1,920-square-kilometre sheet of impossible blue at 4,718 metres, ringed by snow peaks and prayer flags.
Chongqing
City guide · 12 tours
A vertical city of fog, cable cars and cliff-side stilt houses, where the火锅 never stops boiling and the night skyline outshines Hong Kong.
Qiandongnan
City guide · 11 tours
A thousand Miao households stacked up a mountainside, drum towers and wind-rain bridges in Dong villages, and a 600-year-old Ming garrison town on the road to Guiyang.
Libo
City guide · 11 tours
Emerald rivers threading through karst peaks, a 600-metre forest growing out of a riverbed, and China's largest wild plum grove.
Guiyang
City guide · 11 tours
China's summer capital at 1,100 metres, where the nights run on sour fish soup, street-side barbecue and mahjong that never quite stops.
Zhenyuan
City guide · 11 tours
A 2,000-year-old river town where the Wuyang River carves an S through the mountains and every lane hides a story.
Huangguoshu
City guide · 11 tours
Asia's biggest waterfall, and the only one on earth you can walk behind, above and around — plus 600-year-old Ming dynasty villages a short drive away.
Harbin
City guide · 11 tours
Minus 30 degrees, a frozen river you can walk across, and a cathedral built by Russians who never went home.
Yunnan
City guide · 11 tours
Snow mountains, tropical rainforest, twenty-five minorities and a plate of rice noodles — all in one province.
Shanghai
City guide · 11 tours
A 1920s waterfront of colonial banks facing a science-fiction skyline, soup dumplings you eat with a straw, and 20 million people moving like clockwork.
Zhangjiajie
City guide · 11 tours
Three thousand sandstone pillars straight out of Avatar, a glass skywalk bolted to a cliff, and a cable car that leaves from downtown.
Guangzhou
City guide · 11 tours
A 2,200-year-old trading port where dim sum is a religion, colonial islands sit beside 600-metre towers, and the food never stops.
Guilin
City guide · 11 tours
Karst peaks rising straight out of a green river, rice terraces carved into mountainsides, and the best bowl of noodles you'll eat in China.
Shenzhen
City guide · 11 tours
A fishing village that became a megacity in forty years — and it still has 500-year-old banyans, empty beaches and dim sum worth the border crossing.
Chengdu
City guide · 11 tours
A 3,000-year-old city where the schedule is tea, mahjong and hotpot — and the pandas are just the opening act.
Xinjiang
City guide · 11 tours
Snow peaks, grassland, desert and oasis — one-sixth of China, and the longest road you will ever ride.
Xi'an
City guide · 14 tours
Thirteen dynasties of emperors, a terracotta army buried for 2,200 years, and a walled city you can cycle in 100 minutes.
Qinghai
City guide · 11 tours
China's high-altitude blue heart: a salt lake you can walk on, a 3,200-metre sea, and yak butter tea at the roof of the world.
Tibet
City guide · 11 tours
A plateau the size of Western Europe where the sky starts at your feet, prayer flags carry the wind, and the roads run past 8,000-metre peaks.
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