Ancient Water Villages

Many of these ancient water villages are only 1 – 1.5 hours from Shanghai, but their ambience is world away from their cosmopolitan neighbour. Unlike Shanghai, who always striving for the tallest, the biggest and the latest, these water villages just decides not to move on, and stay as they are hundreds of years ago. Instead of high skyscrapers and hi-tech intelligent buildings, they keep the Ming and Qing Dynasty buildings, old mansions and ancient temples, waterways, century-old stone bridges,and most important of all – the lifestyle. The Shanghainese are working round the clock to stay up to the cutting edge, these village people lay back, smoking a pipe, watching the boats passing by.

Next time when you visit Shanghai or Suzhou, make sure you spare one day visiting one of these water villages. Most popular ones are Tongli, Zhouzhuang, Zhujiajiao, Wuzhen and Xitang.