Taizhou

About Taizhou

Taizhou has been a quiet city of scholars and salt merchants on the north bank of the Yangtze for more than two thousand years, and it still moves at an unhurried pace. Its old core is ringed by the Fengcheng River, the former moat, where restored pavilions, bridges and towers reflect in the water at night.

The city's cultural pride is Peking opera: the great performer Mei Lanfang traced his family roots here, and a memorial museum honours him beside the water. Ming dynasty gardens, Buddhist temples and old residential lanes recall the wealth that flowed through Taizhou when salt from the coast was shipped along its canals. Morning tea is an institution, with crab-roe soup dumplings and fish-broth noodles served in teahouses across town.

Outside the centre, Jiangyan's Qintong Boat Festival fills a lake with hundreds of decorated boats each spring, and the three-tower Taizhou Yangtze River Bridge links the city to the south bank. Yangzhou and Nanjing are within easy reach by road and rail.