The lovely Yangtze water town of Old Hangzhou

[EnLinea Media]

Once known in English as Hangchow, the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou is on a bay between Shanghai and Ningbo. Once the southern end of the Grand Canal from Peking, it has long been famed for its beauty both scenery- and architecture-wise.  On a recent overnight trip from Shanghai, two hours away, we found a metro area of 21 million, and at its core the classical pagodas, temples, and waterways that once had the likes of Marco Polo and Ibn Batuta in raptures... keep reading