The City of Gardens

We had one full day in Suzhou to explore as many of its sights as possible.  Since it was our only full day, I knew that I wanted to hit at least a couple of the “big 4”.  There are 4 major tourist gardens and pavilions in Suzhou and the first one was within a 20 minute walk from our hotel.

Canglang Pavilion 沧浪亭
Address: 3 Canglangting St, 沧浪區 Suzhou, Jiangsu, China
Hours: Open today · 7:30 am – 5:00 pm

The Canglang Pavilion was much smaller than I expected and was also more of a mini garden than a pavilion.  Built in the Song Dynasty, it is a UNESCO site and often frequented by international visitors.  When we were there, we saw tour groups from India, Spain and Italy. 

We didn’t spend too much time here as it was really quite small and we were done looking around in about 20 minutes.  The one thing that was frustrating about this place was that we were trying to find a washroom and all the signs kept pointing in different directions and in the end, we left without figuring out where the washroom actually was.  There weren’t any staff around to ask either.

Humble Administrator’s Garden 拙政园
Address: 178 Dongbei St, 平江区 Suzhou, Jiangsu, China, 215001
Phone: +86 512 6751 0286

After the Pavilion, we took a bus to the Humble Administrator’s Garden, the most famous garden in Suzhou. You definitely get the feeling that this is a very popular tourist destination, because we hadn’t even gotten off the bus yet, before all these people started bombarding us about purchasing tickets and this continued right up to the ticket office. This place reminded me a bit of Xi’an’s Big Goose Pagoda. The exterior was lined with vendors and trees and was extremely pretty.

From the exterior, you cannot really gage how big this place is. Once inside, there is a map and at first glance, I was so confused and lost as to where to even start.  It is the largest garden in Suzhou and supposedly one of the best examples of a historical Chinese garden. 

Shantang Street 山塘街 and Shilu 石路
This street is located a bit far from all of Suzhou’s other attractions, but it is definitely worth looking for.  It is often referred to as one of the most famous ancient streets in China, with a history of 1200 years. The street was built along the Shantang River during the Tang Dynasty and is home to many shops and vendors.

We decided to visit it at night and was amazed by how beautiful it was.  The place that our bus dropped us off at was actually the back entrance to Shantang Street.  We entered right into the canal area and this was the sight waiting for us:

We made our way to the entrance area which consisted of a long pathway with many different vendors selling snacks and drinks.

After enjoying our time at Shantang, we made our way over to Shilu which is a pedestrian road full of shopping and food.  It was pretty late by this point but the road was still filled with people and the atmosphere was very lively.

Getting there by subway: Line 2 to Shantang Street Station
Getting there by bus: No. 7 / 50 East / 50 West / 64 / 70 East / 70 West / 85 / 318 / 406 / 522 / 800 East / 800 West / 921 to Shantang Street Station