Tucked away on the southeastern coast of China's Zhejiang Province, WENZHOU appears at first glance to be an obscure provincial backwater. However, despite its lack of historical associations, its location on the sea is crucial. The inhabitants of southern Zhejiang, along with Fujian to the south - hemmed in on the coast by the mountainous interior - have for centuries looked out to the sea, rather than to the mainland, for their livelihood. Shipping, fishing and trading have been the mainstay of the economy, while politically the tendency has been to ignore the rest of China altogether, an inclination that can still be seen today both in the notoriously eccentric local dialect and in the free-market economy gone wild. Smuggling and the pirating of brand-named products have always been popular sidelines down here. Now, with the city attracting significant amounts of overseas (mainly Taiwanese) investment, local entrepreneurial skills have made this a boom town like no other in China - many attribute their business know-how to their eleventh-century Jewish trader ancestors.

Quite apart from the difficulty of getting here, the effect of this economic maelstrom on tourism is questionable. Although Wenzhou has plenty of hotels, its attractions are mainly confined to Jiangxin Park in the middle of the Ou River, a moderately interesting waterfront, and a surprisingly well-preserved old city, dating to the days when it was a prosperous foreign treaty port , from the 1870s onwards. Farther afield lies the Yandang Shan nature park, with excellent walking opportunities, pagodas and lush scenery.