If not the most beautiful of cities, ZHENJIANG, China does offer three intriguing temples to explore, each perched on top of a hill from which there are some excellent vistas of the Yangzi River. The city is worth a stopover either as a day trip from Nanjing or, more realistically, as an overnight stop en route between Shanghai or Suzhou and Nanjing. Tourists flock to the temples on weekends, but at most other times, you'll feel blissfully free of the herds that characterize Suzhou and other top tourist draws in the area.

For more than two thousand years, Zhenjiang has provided a safe harbour and a strong defensive position at the junction of two of the world's greatest trade routes, the Yangzi River and the Grand Canal . Protected on three sides by low hills, the focus of this outward-looking city remains very much set on the mighty river and across it towards Yangzhou on the northern bank. During the Three Kings period, a Wu ruler built a walled city on this site as his capital; it grew rapidly, boosted over the centuries by the southern branch of the Grand Canal, and by proximity to the Ming capital at Nanjing. Marco Polo remarked on the richness of the local silks and gold fabrics, and these are still renowned, as are, less romantically, Zhenjiang vinegar and pickles. After the Opium Wars the British and French were granted concessions here, and some intriguing traces of these remain today around the site of the former British Consulate. Now on the main Shanghai-Nanjing rail line, and still an important Yangzi anchorage, Zhenjiang's prosperity remains assured, with yet more expansion on the way as a new bridge across the river creates new trade links with northern Jiangsu.