Shanghai Pathways

Xitang is a famous water town with thousands of years of history, lying in Jiashan County in Jiaxing City,Zhejiang Province. It dates back to the Spring and Autumn Period (770 BC-476 BC) and the Warring States Period (476 BC-221 BC). It has a peaceful and beautiful environment, with flat terrain and netted rivers. It features huge area and a large number of bridges, lanes, and ceilinged corridors.

What's more, other than the noisy commercial places of interest, Xitang offers pure scenery of a little town, making the tourists feel quiet and cozy. In Xitang, there are well-preserved groups of buildings of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) with relatively high artistic quality and research value.

There are a total of 122 lanes, long and short, wide and narrow. Among all the lanes, Shipi Lane is the most famous. It is situated at the west side of Zhongfu Hall in the West Street, with a total length of 68 meters. The lane is about 1 meter at the widest but the narrowest point is only 80 centimeters. It is paved with 166 stone planks which are only 3 centimeters thick, which is really hard to be chisel from the granite. That is why it is called Shipi (the skin of the stone) Lane. Walking through the long quiet lane with stained tall walls is just like traveling through the town's long history in a spatio-temporal tunnel. Ceilinged corridors are the most special scene in Xitang construction. It was originally built to make convenience for the residents trading on boats by the side of the rivers. Each shop has a ceiling over the stone-plank road in front of its own house, and the ceilings connect with one another to form corridors, the longest of which is 1,300 meters, like a silk belt winding along the river.

Standing under the ceilings, looking at the white walls at the other bank, looking at the masts and the green ripples, boats and the shadows of the bridges, one will revel in the beauty of the scenery. When Tom Cruise came to China to film Mission Impossible 3, part of the movie was filmed in Xitang. The rustic charm is now “enhanced” by the posters of Tom Cruise everywhere.