Since it became home to the annual World Internet Conference in 2014 – it’s also called the Wuzhen Summit – the town has been a pioneering model of Chinese ‘smart travel’. Not only does Wuzhen’s official website and WeChat let you book hotels and homestays for the night and buy entrance tickets to attractions through your smartphone, but every shop, restaurant and bar is well-organised with Alipay and WeChat payment enabled. Staff use an iPad to scan my face for check-in at my hotel.

"Being able to connect to Wi-Fi the moment you enter Wuzhen is a prominent upgrade for the iconic water town, an area with so much poetic elegance," says Blue Luo, strategic brand director for Chinese fashion giant EP Yaying Fashion Group, explaining why the brand held its a runway show here last year. "Thanks to the many years of reconstruction and reintegration, it’s getting more and more popular with tourists."

There are two ticketed tourist areas: West Gate and East Gate. The east side has a more traditional vibe, which draws huge crowds. By contrast, on the west side there’s the massive, modernist Mu Xin Art Museum, dedicated to the eponymous artist, poet and Wuzhen native. Sitting atop Yuan Bao Lake, the rigid, imposing structure designed by New York’s OLI Architecture seems to float on water. It houses Mu’s ink paintings, lithographs and calligraphy in permanent galleries, while there are also temporary exhibitions on writers and artists who influenced him.

Not far away is the Wuzhen Theatre, a round building of glass and concrete. The popular Wuzhen Theatre Festival takes over the town each autumn, welcoming Chinese and overseas performing groups. This revival of literary and dramatic arts in the area nods to the town’s rich cultural heritage. Apart from Mu, Wuzhen is also the birthplace of Mao Dun, one of China’s most famous cultural critics and novelists, who worked as Mao Zedong’s secretary and then culture minister from 1949 to 1964. It’s well worth a visit to his charming old residence.