Xidi and Hongcun Villages

Xidi and Hongcun are Huizhou merchant villages, built with money made in trade and spent at home on ancestral halls and carved timber. The walls are white, the roofs dark grey, and the stepped gables meant to stop fire spreading give the streets their outline. Hongcun is laid out around water: a stream channelled along every lane, a half-moon pond at the centre of the village and a larger lake at the entrance with the hills reflected in it. Xidi is drier and denser, a long spine of lanes with a carved stone memorial archway at the entrance and deep, dark house interiors behind small doors.

What you actually see

• Hongcun's Moon Pond - the half-moon pool at the centre with houses closing tightly around it.
• South Lake - the water and arched bridge at Hongcun's entrance, with the hills behind.
• Chengzhi Hall - a merchant house in Hongcun with dense carved timber screens and beams.
• Xidi's memorial archway - the tall carved stone gateway standing at the village entrance.

When to go

March to May and September to November. Spring brings rape flower fields around the villages and the largest crowds; autumn is drier and quieter. Early morning and evening are best, once the day groups and the art classes have gone. Both villages have guesthouses, and staying in one changes the visit considerably.

Honest expectations

Both are ticketed and busy, with guides shouting through loudhailers in narrow lanes and drawing classes occupying every good viewpoint. Interiors are dim and many rooms are roped off or turned into shops. Hongcun's water channels can smell in warm weather. Rain, which is common here, makes the stone lanes slippery and the villages gloomy.

Nearby

Huangshan is under two hours away, and Tunxi's old street is on the way back.