About 80 km from Hangzhou city and just an easy hour bus ride away, Wu Zhen is a town where time passes without notice. More and more tourists have discovered the time-worn cobbled stone streets, crow-stepped gable, wooden doors and long, narrow alleys of Wu Zhen. Still, the life of the locals seem undisturbed. They still keep to their traditional customs, like drinking Sanbai Wine, making traditional maltose and sipping morning tea until 9.30 am, the same leisurely and pleasing way their great grandfathers did. With the newly created Wu Zhen International Theater Festival, the town shows also a touch of modern culture.

Bring time to the serene Fei Lai Feng mountain park and marvel at the area's hundreds of Buddha stone carvings, surrounded by lush greenery and an indescribable tranquil atmosphere. Much of the walk will entail hiking uphill to Lingyin Temple, so bring comfortable shoes.

The Fremont Street Experience is a highly successful attempt to draw the millions of visitors back to the downtown area. The domed-canopy 90 feet (27,5 meters) above the street was constructed along five city blocks, lined with some of the oldest casinos in Las Vegas. Every evening from sundown to midnight, the canopy becomes a giant screen showing high resolution images accompanied by concert-quality sound. At the top of each hour, visitors pour into the streets, looking skyward in anticipation of one of the six different shows lasting six to nine minutes.

Second only to Parisian Louvre in the calibre of its collection, Lille's Fine Arts Museum (Palais des Beaux Arts) contains works by assorted great masters, the likes of Rubens and Manet. The basement level holds archaeological finds and miniature representations of the region's 18th-century fortified settlements.