Twin Pagodas

A temple on the site of a Tang Dynasty temple. Little more than two huge 300-year-old Ginkgo trees and some stone pillar bases remain from the original complex after it was demolished and a factory built atop in 1949.

A beautiful walk along an ancient road paved with hand-cut stones over a thousand years old and lined with shops maintaining traditional architectural styles. It runs from near the Humble Administrator's Garden and Suzhou Museum south into the center of town. There are a surprising number of western-style coffee shops with full English menus, Internet and English books. If you get further north on this road, but south of the museum area, the shops eventually run out and it just becomes a quiet neighbourhood again. This may be the best part of all.

The Suzhou Opera Museum has performances of three traditional local arts — Kunqu opera, which is on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list, Suqu opera, and Pingtan storytelling with ballads. All use the Wu language. There are stages for the opera and a teahouse in Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) style for the storytelling. The museum part has exhibition rooms for each of those three arts, a collection of musical instruments, and other items including block-printed editions of Kunqu opera from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), original rubbings of local opera scripts, rare handwritten copies of operas and Pingtan from the Qing Dynasty, and items that belonged to well-known deceased singers such as Ma Rufei, Wu Mei, Yu Sulu and Wang Jili.

A large Taoist hall perpetually obscured by a curtain of joss smoke of devotes eager to placate the gods inside. It has a large market area, many small shops with a range of goods aimed mainly at either devotees or tourists. The temple was established in the 3rd century and broadened to its present size in the Song Dynasty, where it became a popular spot for travelling magicians and acrobats. The erstwhile performers have given way to a multitude of stalls selling meretricious worldly goods on which you can easily make your money disappear. The main Sanxing Dian hall was rebuilt in 1811 to hold Song Dynasty deity statues, later destroyed by Red Guards they occupied the hall during the cultural revolution. The present sculptures are modern reproductions. Of greater antiquity is a stone impressed with the footprints of a Taoist god, found in the Ming dynasty. The stone is genuine, but the origins of the feet less certain.

Founded in 1140, and rebuilt in 1770 by the bureaucrat Song Zongyuan. The enclosed complex of house and garden is one of the smallest, most beautiful, and most perfectly proportioned in Suzhou. Don't let the small size deceive you, this garden has enough to occupy you for half a day or more. On certain evenings there are demonstrations of many traditional performing arts.

Built in early 20th century by a couple. Many small garden rooms lead you from view to view. Each window or hall perfectly frames a set of plants, rocks or trees. Every inch of the garden has been carefully thought out. Most of the garden consists of covered walkways, so even though it may rain you will be able to enjoy this garden without getting wet.