Shaoxing beyond Lu Xun's street: the taimen lanes around Bazi Bridge

At the foot of Bazi Bridge (八字桥) a woman is beating a wet shirt against a stone step with a wooden paddle, and the sound goes under the span and comes back half a beat late. Behind her a gate stands open on a dim passage, a parked scooter, a line of washing. This is Shaoxing (绍兴), a quarter-hour or so on foot from the street most visitors take for the whole town.

The street the coaches stop at

Coaches unload at Lu Xun Native Place (鲁迅故里, Lu Xun Guli), a broad paved stretch of Lu Xun Middle Road (鲁迅中路) built around the writer's family compound and his schoolroom, Sanwei Study (三味书屋). Along the same road, Xianheng Tavern (咸亨酒店) sells bowls of yellow wine and saucers of fennel beans (茴香豆, huixiang dou) to a queue that photographs the bronze figure at the door before ordering. It is a fair hour, and by mid-morning a loud one.

What the street does show well is a house type. Shaoxing's old families lived in taimen (台门): a walled compound behind a single gate, halls and courtyards laid one behind another, a skywell (天井, tianjing) between each to let in light and rain. The Lu Xun houses are taimen made into museums. North of here the same compounds are still homes, divided among many households, with a row of meter boxes beside the gate.

Bazi Bridge and water that is still used

Bazi Bridge sits where narrow canals meet in the east of the old town. It is a stone beam bridge, and an inscription on a pillar beneath the deck places it in the Southern Song; the name comes from the approach stairs, which fall away at angles so that the two sides read as the character 八, eight. The treads have worn into shallow dishes.

The thing to watch is the hebutou (河埠头), the stone landing steps cut into the bank at intervals. People rinse mops there, scale fish, and sit on the top step with a flask of tea. Follow the canal north along Bazi Bridge Zhijie (八字桥直街) and the water widens under Guangning Bridge (广宁桥), a long stone arch whose curve is built from flat faces rather than a true round. Now and then a wupeng chuan (乌篷船), the black-awning boat of the postcards, slides through, the rower pushing the main oar with both feet. Up here the canal belongs to the neighbours, and a camera pointed through a doorway is noticed.

台门里住的是人家，不是景点。

A calligrapher's neighbourhood, read from its lane names

North of Guangning Bridge, below the small hill called Jishan (蕺山), the quarter is signed Shusheng Guli (书圣故里), the Calligraphy Sage's old home. The sage is Wang Xizhi (王羲之), the fourth-century master whose running script students still copy. Local tradition puts his house on the site of Jiezhu Temple (戒珠寺), with a small pond nearby labelled Mochi (墨池), the ink pond.

The stories are fixed in the street plan. Tishan Bridge (题扇桥), Fan-Inscribing Bridge, marks where he is said to have written on an old woman's unsold fans so they would fetch more. Duopo Lane (躲婆弄), Hide-from-the-Granny Lane, is where he reportedly ducked when she came back with another basket. None of this can be proved, and all of it can be walked in ten minutes.

Jishan Street (蕺山街), the spine, has been repaved and lined with shops selling brushes, ink sticks and rubbings. In the side lanes the paving turns uneven within a few doors. Some taimen here take guests: a handful of rooms around a skywell, a wooden stair, the owner's family behind a curtain. Read recent reviews for whether the owners live on site, and confirm before paying that the house can register a foreign passport, which not all small guesthouses in China are set up to do.

Cangqiao Zhijie, and what to order in a wine town

Cangqiao Zhijie (仓桥直街) runs beside a canal at the eastern foot of Fushan (府山), the low wooded hill on the old town's western side. It is the half-way case. The street fronts are restaurants and wine shops with clay jars stacked at the door; the gates between them carry plaques naming the taimen behind, and residents wheel bicycles in and out past the diners.

This is the place to sit down with huangjiu (黄酒), the amber rice wine the city is known for. Four styles run from dry to sweet: yuanhong (元红), jiafan (加饭), shanniang (善酿) and xiangxue (香雪). Jiafan is the usual table wine. A server may ask ji nian chen (几年陈), how many years aged, and in cool weather whether it should be warmed. It tends to arrive in a shallow bowl.

Order meigancai kourou (梅干菜扣肉), pork belly steamed over dried, salted mustard greens until the two are hard to separate, and zuiji (醉鸡), chicken steeped cold in the wine. Mei xiancai geng (霉苋菜梗), fermented amaranth stalks, is the one to approach with care; the smell reaches the table first. Those who would rather not drink can ask for Pingshui zhucha (平水珠茶), a tightly rolled green tea named for a town south of the city.

Getting there, timing, and the mistake to avoid

High-speed trains between Hangzhou and Ningbo call at Shaoxing North (绍兴北站), outside the centre; the older Shaoxing Station (绍兴站) sits just north of the old town and is the better arrival when a suitable train stops there. Shaoxing Metro Line 1 runs toward the centre and connects westward to Hangzhou's network. Check current routings and fares on 12306 and in the metro operator's app. From Shaoxing Station the natural order is south on foot: Shusheng Guli, the two bridges, Lu Xun Guli once the lanes have been seen, then Cangqiao Zhijie for dinner.

Go early, when the canals are most in use, and on a weekday outside national holidays. Early summer brings the plum rains (梅雨, meiyu), when the stone steps are slick; late autumn and winter are clearer, and the season when warmed wine makes most sense.

The lanes are ordinary public streets. The memorial houses, the temple and the boats each have their own ticketing, booking and fare arrangements, and these change; confirm them at the ticket windows, on the boards at the docks, or through the Shaoxing tourism authority's official channels, and carry your passport.

The mistake is the open gate. A taimen gate left ajar is ventilation, and a way through for the people who live there. Stand at the threshold, and if someone is in the passage ask keyi kankan ma (可以看看吗), may I have a look. Sometimes the answer is a wave inward. Sometimes it is not, and the lane outside is enough.