The wupeng chuan — flat-bottomed canal boat with a low black bamboo awning — is the traditional transport of the Shaoxing canal system and remains the most atmospheric way to see the old city. Short boat tours depart from several landings near the Lu Xun quarter and the Shen Garden area, navigating the canal network between whitewashed walls, under stone arch bridges, and past the backs of traditional courtyard houses whose water gates open onto the canal.
The tours run about forty minutes and cover the most scenic section of the canal district. The boats are poled or foot-propelled by boatmen in traditional dress, which gives the experience a degree of theatricality, but the canal scenery itself — old stone bridges, tile-roofed houses, trees overhanging the water, the occasional view into a garden — is genuinely worth seeing. The early morning tours, before the day-trip crowds from Hangzhou arrive, offer a quieter and more reflective version of the same route.