Zhujiajiao sits on the western edge of Shanghai, in Qingpu district, where the canals of the Yangtze delta meet the water town of Dianshan Lake. It is old - a market town on the water by the Ming dynasty and a trading port before that - and, unlike some of the delta towns, it is still inhabited rather than rebuilt as a set. The easiest way to understand it is to get off the main street and onto the water, because the whole quarter was laid out around the canals, and the streets are secondary.
The canal and the bridges
The town is cut by a grid of waterways, with the main channel crossed by a series of stone bridges. The best known is the five-arch stone bridge in the centre, built in the Ming dynasty and rebuilt in the Qing, whose central span is high enough for boats to pass underneath with the rower standing. Around it are single-arch bridges, some of them steep enough to be stepped rather than ramped, and along the banks the old trading buildings are still standing: granaries, cloth shops, a post office, the wharves where goods were loaded. The scale is small - the old quarter can be walked across in twenty minutes - which is why the boat is worth the money.
The boat trip
The boats are wooden, rowed by hand with a single oar worked from the stern, and they carry a handful of passengers. Routes vary, but the standard run takes you along the main canal, under the five-arch bridge, into the narrower side channels behind the streets and back. From the water the town looks the way it was built to look: whitewashed walls, dark tiled roofs, stone steps down to the water, washing lines, potted plants on the sills and the reflections of the bridges. The trip takes about twenty minutes and is priced per boat rather than per person, so a group pays less per head.
Practical notes
Zhujiajiao is roughly an hour from central Shanghai by road, and reachable by metro plus a short bus or taxi from the western end of the network. Boat jetties are along the main canal and sell on the spot; queues build in the middle of the day, and the first boats go out shortly after the town wakes up, which is also the quietest and best-lit time. The town has an entrance policy rather than a single ticket, with separate charges for the boat and for the individual gardens and halls, and it is very crowded on weekends and public holidays. Come on a weekday morning if you can.
