The first of my two day trips out of Shanghai was to Suzhou in Jiangsu province, just a short hop away on the train. This city is famous for two things, it's canal network and it's gardens. I came to see both but only really managed the gardens. I had the usual two hour hassle of running about trying to arrange how to leave the city again later that day, which frustrated me no end, particularly as apparently the boat I wanted to catch overnight down the Grand Canal to Hangzhou wasn't running anymore. Instead of leisurely cruising down the world's longest canal I had to take yet another bus. The Grand Canal really isn't that well known but equals the Great Wall in scale and was begun 2500 years ago. Missing that was a big disappointment.
Still, Suzhou has a number of canals within the city itself and walking along those was nice enough. Not great though. Some people seem to love it, I felt fairly indifferent. The real highlights were the gardens though. The first one I found was the Humble Administrators Garden.
This was a nice place to chill out after all the stress of the morning. It was like walking through a door into another little world: a world of peace and quiet, clean and green. A total escape. You couldn't believe that China was just over the other side of the wall. I had a bit of time to sit down, breathe...and chill out. If I hadn't I think I'd have flipped when a guy in a noodle shop round the corner took the piss and ripped me off by pointing at one thing and telling me it was something else, later charging me more money than I'd thought it would be. I consequently ran out of cash and had to walk for about an hour trying to find an ATM to use my credit card in. If the last attraction I saw hadn't been as absolutely amazing as it was, Suzhou would have been a complete disaster.
Thank God for the Garden Of The Master Of The Nets. Chinese classical gardens are primarily works of art, and this was a masterpiece. The main elements of all these gardens are water and stone, with almost no flowering plants. Small trees and grasses feature instead. They tend to be quite ornamental, but in a way that is meant to appear totally natural. They were built mainly for local officials and are completely contained within the bounds of the house by high walls and divided up by covered walkways and pavilions. Some are well over 600 years old too.
This particular garden is quite small, but never comes across that way. It's minimal in planting but what is there is done to great effect. I loved it. The pictures say everything else you need to know, except for the fact that I want one myself!
The first of my two day trips out of Shanghai was to Suzhou in Jiangsu province, just a short hop away on the train. This city is famous for two things, it's canal network and it's gardens. I came to see both but only really managed the gardens. I had the usual two hour hassle of running about trying to arrange how to leave the city again later that day, which frustrated me no end, particularly as apparently the boat I wanted to catch overnight down the Grand Canal to Hangzhou wasn't running anymore. Instead of leisurely cruising down the world's longest canal I had to take yet another bus. The Grand Canal really isn't that well known but equals the Great Wall in scale and was begun 2500 years ago. Missing that was a big disappointment.
Still, Suzhou has a number of canals within the city itself and walking along those was nice enough. Not great though. Some people seem to love it, I felt fairly indifferent. The real highlights were the gardens though. The first one I found was the Humble Administrators Garden.
This was a nice place to chill out after all the stress of the morning. It was like walking through a door into another little world: a world of peace and quiet, clean and green. A total escape. You couldn't believe that China was just over the other side of the wall. I had a bit of time to sit down, breathe...and chill out. If I hadn't I think I'd have flipped when a guy in a noodle shop round the corner took the piss and ripped me off by pointing at one thing and telling me it was something else, later charging me more money than I'd thought it would be. I consequently ran out of cash and had to walk for about an hour trying to find an ATM to use my credit card in. If the last attraction I saw hadn't been as absolutely amazing as it was, Suzhou would have been a complete disaster.
Thank God for the Garden Of The Master Of The Nets. Chinese classical gardens are primarily works of art, and this was a masterpiece. The main elements of all these gardens are water and stone, with almost no flowering plants. Small trees and grasses feature instead. They tend to be quite ornamental, but in a way that is meant to appear totally natural. They were built mainly for local officials and are completely contained within the bounds of the house by high walls and divided up by covered walkways and pavilions. Some are well over 600 years old too.
This particular garden is quite small, but never comes across that way. It's minimal in planting but what is there is done to great effect. I loved it. The pictures say everything else you need to know, except for the fact that I want one myself!
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