Luzhi


Situated 25 kilometers southeast from Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. Luzhi is reputed to be the Venice of
the East, it is famous for its beautiful waterways and ancient bridges, some of the bridges dated back
to Song dynasty. A tour in ancient town Luzhi is a tour into history frozen in time.

Luzhi is gifted with favorable terrain and outstanding people. It faces the Wusong River to the north
and the Chenghu Lake to the south, and borders on Kunshan City to the east, and Suzhou to the west.
Today's Luzhi teems with lakes, rivers and bridges, luring numerous visitors with its beautiful scenery.

Luzhi has been reputed as A Land of Bridges for long. The one square kilometer town proper once
had 72.5 stone arched bridges built in Song Dynasty, Yuan Dynasty, Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty.
Now 41 bridges still exist which are all different from each other in design and style: large multi-arched stone bridges, small single span stone
bridges, spacious arched bridges, narrow level-decking bridges, etc. Visiting Luzhi is actually very much like visiting a museum of ancient bridges.
The density of bridges here even exceeds that of Venice. All theses bridges make Luzhi quite special as a town in watery regions.

There are also a lot of ancient relics in Luzhi town, such as the famous Baosheng Temple is located in the west of Luzhi. It is recorded that the
temple was constructed in 503. Having a history of more than 1,480 years, it is an ancient temple in areas south of the lower reaches of the
Yangtze River. With an area of over 100 mu,5,000 rooms and 1,000 monks in its early days, the temple attracted a great number of worshippers
and pilgrims. Today we can still see its large scale from the remains. Beside its large scale, the sculpture in the temple also is also known far and
wide. The tomb of Mr. Fu Li is in the west yard of the temple, with the Douya Pond in front. The Qingfeng Pavilion stands in the center of the pond.
There are also stone bridges and ginkgos of thousands of years old in the temple.

Culture, education, hygiene, etc. have been well developed in the town. It now has one secondary
special training school, two middle schools, two middle schools, two primary schools, one hospital
and one cultural center. Besides there are hotels, restaurants, inner harbour ports, etc.