Suzhou

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.

Built in the Ming Dynasty, but many parts of it were rebuilt in the Qing Dynasty. Part of the garden is the Nanmu Hall with a collection of furniture made of nanmu, a wood that is fairly common in China and prized because it looks good and resists both humidity and decay. Mandarin Duck Hall is divided into two parts by a meticulously carved partition.

Very small garden in the heart of downtown. Good place to have a cup of green tea. Usually visited by lots of local elderly people.

Make sure to go all the way towards the back inside the garden to see the best part. This tucked away place is a little tough to find but totally worth the effort if you want to find a quiet, unpretentious place visited mainly by locals.

Viewable from the train station, the peak of the pagoda is Suzhou's most famous. A garden and temples are on the grounds.

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 pair of brick Northern Song Dynasty pagodas stand sentinel over the stark remains of an Arhat Temple from the same era. Mostly intact stone pillars, gracefully carved with floral designs, at the corners of the foundation, give a sense the invisible halls size and a stone etching at the rear of the garden helps you fill in the rest. The temple was damaged in the Qing dynasty and abandoned totally at the onset of China's republic. The grounds are peaceful but feel like a stone graveyard with fragments of carvings displayed around the outer wall or used as stands for bonsai plants.

Established in the Liang dynasty (502-557 AD), most of the buildings date from the Tang Dynasty except for the five-storey pagoda which was built later.

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.

Established in the Northern Song Dynasty (1035 CE), the Confucian Temple has continually been one of the most important institutes for higher studies in the country. Much of its ground today is still occupied by Suzhou Middle School. Flanked by trees of hundreds of years of age, the main hall includes an impressive portrait of Confucius made of lacquer, and various ceremonial instruments. Ask the guard for the four Song Dynasty Steles (四大宋碑), each standing more than 15 feet tall, which include a Song dynasty map of the city (much of it still works today), a map of China, a sky map, and a lineage of all Chinese emperors till the 13th century when these steles were carved.

Designed by I.M. Pei, whose family came from Suzhou. Pei lived most of his life in the US and was a very successful architect there, known for the glass pyramid outside the Louvre in Paris, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, and other landmarks. He came out of retirement in his 80s to return to Suzhou to create a museum that married his modernist sensibility with his sense of the region; as a teenager he lived in Shanghai and often visited family in Suzhou. Do not miss the recreation of the Ming Dynasty scholar's study. You'll need to make a reservation in the museum's website.

Suzhou is famous for embroidery work, with silk as the main material. The Suzhou style has a history going back 2000 years and is considered one of China's four great types of embroidery. (The others are centered in Changsha, Chaozhou and Chengdu.) The Institute functions as a museum, as a workshop for modern craftspeople, and as an outlet for their products. Prices may be somewhat higher than elsewhere, but quality is high.

Exhibits of painting and calligraphy, especially modern Chinese art and local Suzhou artists.

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.

This museum is dedicated to the city's millennia-old silk production history. Beyond static exhibits, visitors can often watch live demonstrations of intricate traditional weaving techniques like Song brocade, making it a deeply immersive cultural experience[citation:4].

This is a relatively new museum, opened in 2003, but the building it is in dates back to the reign of Emperor Qianlong, 1735-1796. The museum's collection numbers nearly one-thousand pieces and includes modern Suzhou embroidery, sandalwood, tapestry, wood carving, stone carving, Ming-style furniture, ethnic musical instruments, antique bronze, lacquerwork and metal crafts.

One of Suzhou's newest museums. The museum displays artefacts from archaeological sites in the Suzhou area.

Housed in the former Confucian Temple, this museum holds a rich collection of ancient stone steles, including the renowned "Four Song Dynasty Steles." It's a quieter alternative to the city's more famous museums, focusing on the art of calligraphy and stone carving.

Dedicated to Pingtan, a traditional Suzhou performing art involving storytelling and ballad singing in the Suzhou dialect. Visitors can enjoy live performances, appreciating the elegant music and the soft, melodic sounds of the local language.

If you’re unable to secure a booking at the Suzhou Museum’s main branch, you may want to come here instead. Suzhou Museum West is actually a lot larger than the main branch. It has exhibitions on local history and culture, and often hosts temporary exhibitions. There is also a cafe and a restaurant.

This gate is renowned for its unique structure as a combined water and land gate. It was built as a gate in a city wall built in 514 BCE, but the present structure is from a 14th century rebuild. The remaining wall is 300 m long and 5 m high. Visiting Pan Men includes access to a large and rather lovely garden with ponds and pavilions (feed the koi for ¥2), a boat ride, the city water and land gate, and an original foot bridge over the grand canal.

This pagoda, built in 247 CE and rebuilt during the Song Dynasty about 1000 CE, is part of the Panmen complex. It has seven storeys and is 53 m (about 174 feet) high. Visitors may climb it, and the view is worthwhile.

This gate is well preserved and still used.

A restored canal street running from Changmen to Tiger Hill. The southeast end of the street may be mobbed with tourists, but as you walk further north the souvenir shops and restaurants disappear, and you can take a leisurely stroll along the canal through a quiet residential neighborhood.

This is also called the "Yunyan Pagoda", after the Buddhist temple it was once part of; the temple was burned during the cultural revolution. Some buildings have been reconstructed and a 48-m tall brick pagoda with seven stories and eight sides remains, though now missing its wooden outer skin. It is one of the few remaining examples of pagodas of this type and is sometimes called the "Leaning Tower of China" because it has tilted a bit since it was built in the 900s. Tiger Hill is of enormous importance historically and culturally, but much of its significance will likely be lost on foreign visitors.

Starting from the Northern Pagoda, this street has been sympathetically developed and retains many old-style store fronts. On the east end huge gnarled trees arch over the street.

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.

Li Gong Di is a 1400-meter causeway across Jinji Lake, the largest inner-city lake in China; it was built during the reign of Emperor Guangxu (1874-1908). Some areas near it are being heavily developed. There are metro stations: Ligongdi South on line 5 near the middle of the lake, and Ligondi West on line 3 on the SIP side.

An interesting way to see the city low down in the network of canals.

The street is a rather uninspiring shopping street, however the back streets off it harbor many small shops selling local crafts and some interesting restaurants serving local cuisine.

A hotel resort with hot spring facilities - you can buy a ticket to soak in hot tubs outdoors. It's quite fancy, has plenty of different baths, illuminations and spas. It's in the outskirts to the west of the city, a 30-minute taxi ride away. By public transportation, take Metro Line 1 to a western station, then take a bus - consult Google Maps for details.

Suzhou is relatively flat, and once past the ring-road, traffic is light and easy-going enough to enable a pleasant ride about town. Jinji Lake, Dushu Lake and a few outlying temples are within casual cycling distance. Many hostels rent bikes for around ¥25 a day.

Two local cycle shops — Specialized Bicycles and Trek Cycles; see below for contact information — organise one or two day rides to nearby attractions such as Lake Tai (30 km one way), Yangcheng Lake (40 km around the lake), Tongli (20 km one way) and Zhouzhuang (40 km one way). Pace is normally relaxed with regular stops for photos and taking a rest. Joining the tour is free, although you have to bring your own bike or rent a bike from the store for a deposit and small charge. Costs such as meals and accommodation are split between group members. Although most of the riders are locals, foreigners are always welcomed and most members will speak English, and will ride in a safe manner.

Amusement park in the SND west of downtown.

An annual cultural extravaganza held in Zhangjiagang, Suzhou. It celebrates the diverse cultures along the Yangtze River basin through five main themes: cultural relics, intangible heritage, arts, travel, and openness. The festival features thematic exhibitions, a vibrant intangible cultural heritage bazaar, and electronic guidebooks for exploring riverside cities[citation:6][citation:8].

A bustling, narrow market street frequented by locals, not tourists. It's the perfect place to experience authentic Suzhou life, sample seasonal foods and local snacks, and observe the daily rhythm of the city.