Linhai's Ziyang Street, the Zhejiang wall town built to hold back a river

At the river gates of Linhai (临海), the stone on either side of each arch has a vertical groove cut into it, about a hand wide. Scooters pass through all day without slowing. When the Ling River (灵江) rises, boards are dropped into those grooves and sandbagged from behind, and a wall most visitors read as a fortification returns to its other job, which is keeping water out of people's kitchens.

A wall with two jobs

Linhai sits in the hills of eastern Zhejiang (浙江) and was for centuries the seat of Taizhou prefecture, which is why its wall is signposted as Taizhou Fu City Wall (台州府城墙). The river bends around the old town on the west and south, and the wall follows the bank closely enough that the two are plainly one piece of engineering. The east side, facing away from the water, is the stretch that no longer stands.

Look at the bastions on the river side. On most Chinese city walls these projecting platforms, called mamian (马面, horse faces), are square. Here several have the upstream face rounded or angled, so floodwater slides past instead of striking a flat surface.

城墙挡的不只是敌人，还有江水。

The river gates, among them Zhenning Gate (镇宁门) and Xingshan Gate (兴善门), keep their barbicans: small walled courtyards with the outer and inner arches set off-line from each other. The offset slowed attackers and also breaks a current. Residents treat them as doorways, wheeling bicycles through on the way back from the market.

Up the long steps from East Lake

Most people start at the other end, at Lansheng Gate (揽胜门) beside East Lake (东湖), where a broad stone staircase climbs straight up Beigu Hill (北固山). It is steep enough that the landings fill with people pretending to admire the view.

At the top the wall becomes a ridge walk, pine on one side and tiled roofs on the other. The watchtowers here are hollow and two storeys high, with room inside for men and stores; signage credits the design to Qi Jiguang (戚继光), the general who fought coastal pirates from this town.

From the ridge the wall drops toward the river and flattens. Tour groups tend to climb the steps, photograph the ridge and go back the way they came, which leaves the riverside ramparts to walkers.

A street divided against fire

Ziyang Street (紫阳街) runs north to south through the old town, roughly a kilometre of two-storey timber shopfronts with living quarters above. At intervals a brick wall crosses the whole street, pierced by a single arch. These are fangqiang (坊墙), fire walls, built so that a blaze in one block of wooden houses would stop at the masonry. Each arch carries a name; Wuzhen Fang (悟真坊) nods to the Taoist writer Zhang Boduan (张伯端), called Ziyang, for whom the street is named.

The street has been repaved, and its northern end has its share of milk-tea counters. Further along there is still working trade: a pharmacy with wooden drawers to the ceiling, a shop that makes steelyard scales, tailors. Partway down, the Thousand Buddha Well (千佛井) sits beside the paving, its shaft lined with bricks pressed with small seated figures.

The renovation thins out in the lanes. Follow one of the cross streets, such as Jiguang Street (继光街), away from the shops and turn off wherever a passage opens; shopfronts give way to house doors, washing on bamboo poles, well-heads still used for rinsing mops. Keep the camera down around open doorways and step aside for scooters.

What the old town eats

The best-known sweet is danqing yangwei (蛋清羊尾), egg-white sheep's tail, which contains no sheep. Egg white is whipped stiff, wrapped around red-bean paste, fried until it puffs to the size of a fist and dusted with sugar. Baitaqiao Restaurant (白塔桥饭店) is the long-standing name most often given for it. It deflates within minutes, so it is eaten first.

Maixia (麦虾) need not contain shrimp. The name describes the dough, which the cook slices off the rim of a bowl of thick batter straight into boiling stock, so each piece lands short, curved and uneven, among radish shreds, clams and greens.

For the walk there is haitai bing (海苔饼), a flaky round pastry with a sweet-salty seaweed filling, sold warm from trays on Ziyang Street; the queue is usually longest at Wang Tianshun (王天顺). Around certain festivals families roll maiyouzhi (麦油脂), a thin wheat wrapper filled at the table with shredded dishes. Prices are posted on boards at each counter, and it is worth carrying some cash in case a foreign card will not link to the payment codes.

The hill inside the walls

At the southeast corner the wall encloses Jinshan (巾山), a low wooded hill with a pagoda on each of its two summits. The stepped paths are short, and the view from the top lays out the river, the line of the wall and the grey roofs like a plan.

At its foot is Longxing Temple (龙兴寺), where the Thousand Buddha Pagoda (千佛塔) repeats the motif of the well: a brick tower faced with rows of small moulded figures. The temple's signboards connect it to Saichō, the Japanese monk who studied Tiantai teaching here before carrying it home. The courtyard tends to be quieter than the street outside.

Getting there and getting it right

Linhai Station (临海站) has direct high-speed trains from Hangzhou (杭州) and Ningbo (宁波); check timetables on the railway's 12306 app. The mistake to avoid is booking to Taizhou (台州). The wall carries the old prefecture's name, but the modern city has its centre elsewhere, and its stations leave a long transfer. From Linhai Station, a taxi or city bus covers the rest.

One full day covers the wall, the street and the hill; a second lets you climb before the stairs fill. Spring and autumn are comfortable. Early summer brings long rain and late summer typhoons, and in a town whose wall was built for floods that is not an abstract warning, so watch the forecast and expect sections to close.

Ziyang Street is an ordinary public street. The wall is run as a scenic area with a ticket office at Lansheng Gate; what is charged, which sections are included and when the gates shut are set by the operator, so confirm at the window or with the Linhai culture and tourism bureau. Wear shoes with grip. The steps are worn smooth, and after rain the stone holds water longer than it looks.