Grand Canal

We cruised down the Grand Canal in 2001. The Grand Canal is the longest canal in the world at 1,400 miles long. It starts at Beijing and ends in the city of Hangzhou, linking the Yellow River and Yangtze River. The Grand Canal was built as a way to move rice and troops quickly through the newly combined china in the 5th century BC, but it has been a key to improved China's economy through the ages. We sailed only the stretch from Suzhou to Wuxi, but the amount of commercial shipping on the canal was enormous.