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It successfully reestablishes historic links to long-neglected natural features, creating unique places of beauty for visitors and local people. It's also the birthplace of culture of Wu and Yue during the Five Dynasties Period. By and large, the ancient town is featured by its huge area and countless bridges, lanes, and ceilinged corridors. Apart from that, the beautiful Xitang also provides magnificent scenery of a small town, which without doubt could make the tourists feel quiet and cozy.
There were masts and hulls cropping up everywhere, and these ceilinged corridors are the most singular spectacle in Xitang construction, which also make waters, boats and woods be integrated into the unique multi-level scenery. People are saying that these corridors was at first built to enable people and traffic to move freely by trading on boats on the both sides of the rivers. Many old mansions that have been found are all the wealth crystallizations of a hundred generations of our forebears.
The major difference between Xitang and other ancient towns is the ceilinged corridors nearby the street on the river. The overall length of these corridors is nearly 1 kilometer, just like the long veranda in the Summer Palace. When one travelled here, he can neither stay in the rain nor bathe in the sun's rays. You might get to view some the residential clusters when you are wandering about some small and old towns in Zhejiang or Jiangshu province if you are lucky enough.
The ground evens out in the Xitang town. The quiet, comfortable and unpretentious atmosphere is one of the outstanding features of this ancient town. Here you would also find a large number of beautifully preserved ancient architectural complexes as well, which have a higher artistic quality and significant scientific value.
A bird's-eye view of the whole ancient town must then have offered one a veil of mist and white walls which make the scene most marvelous. At night-fall, one yellow beam from the sinking sun slanted in through the water. The old boat itself was under the guardianship of the ancient houses, ceilinged corridors and a thick screen of them altogether.
When one comes to the Xitang town, these ceilinged corridors along the street are the most intriguing sight. In ancient days, one ceiling is set up over the stony roads in front of each shop, and it also links with one another to form corridors. The entire old town with river-side scenery and folk customs is as pretty as a picture.