Ming and Qing Dynasties Street

The Ming and Qing Dynasties Street is one of the main business streets in Tongli. It sells a lot of goods, you can even see stalls specially selling bells that are installed on bicycles. The street is paved with flagstones. The stores on the both sides are mostly selling local specialties, pretty handicrafts, clothes with beautiful patterns and daily commodities that you can think of. For food lovers, the stores selling local style snacks, such as bittern pig's trotters, cakes with osmanthus fragrance and rice-dumpling cakes and so on. The "white treasures" of Taihu Lake, white shrimps and silverfish, are best for making Chinese dishes. Deep Fried Eggs with Silverfish has always been a famous dish in the region. There are big yellow flags in ancient Chinese style hanging outside these stores indicating what they sell. Of course, the architectural culture here is from Ming or Qing Dynasty – the white walls and the green tiles, often just two levels.

The Ming and Qing Dynasties Street was built in 1996 and it is length about 160 meters. The street completely preserved the design and layout from old times in the south of the lower reaches of Yangtze River – the "upper" street, the "lower" street and two parallel streets. It is a pedestrian only street and vehicles just motorcycles can pass through.