Ancient Towns of China!

China is a country of contrasts. Here, you can find a noisy city full of glass skyscrapers and smog and some of the most expensive commercial streets like Nanjing Lu in Shanghai , but also the traditional mountain village with mud houses and rice plantations.

 

Nanjing lu in Shanghai

But, what I really enjoy traveling in China are its ancient towns which are spread all across China.

Last time when I was in China, I travelled to Zhujiajiao (Chinese: 朱家角; pinyin: Zhūjiājiǎo; literally "Zhu Family Corner"), it is around 50KM from the Shanghai city centre.

This ancient town is famous for its ancient bridges and lakes. 

                                                          Ancient town of Zhujiajiao.

While many foreigner lives in Big cities like Shanghai but if they want to explore further, the above town is not the end. Infact some of the most eyes pleasing towns are far away from big cities. I have been to ancient town of Yangshuo and I have heard a lot about ancient town of Lijiang.  But, both are really attracts truckloads of tourists and the huge crowd sometimes takes away the charm of these towns.

                                      Ancient town of Lijiang 丽江古城 (Yunna, China)

So, what I think would be really interested to explore the ancient towns of less frequent places like Hunan.

Hunan is famous as it is a birthplace of Mao Zhuxi (Shaoshan village), Hunan is made up of 2 chinese words Hu + Nan (湖南) which means (South of the lake) as it lies south of Lake Dongting.

Places of interest in Hunan

1. Wulingyuan is a scenic and historic interest area(you can see from the pictures how beautiful it looks).

                               ZhangjiaJie scenic area in wulingyuan

Now, the ancient town of Hunan

1. Furong Ancient town located in Yongshun County of Xiangxi

                                                              Furong Ancient town

2. Fenghuang Ancient Town, located in Fenghuang County of Xiangxi

                                                           Fenghuang Ancient town 

One more picture of this beautiful ancient town.

                                Tiaohua Festival, fenghuang ancient town.

for more information about Top 10 beautiful ancient town of China, you can see this link.

http://www.mychinatours.com/travelguide/china-old-town.asp

let me know how do you feel about this most, comments and suggestions are always welcome :D