2 Days In-depth Suzhou Culture Discovery Tour

Day 1 Suzhou Arrival & Tour

Today's highlights: Humble Administrator's Garden, Suzhou Museum, Master of the Nets Garden

In the early morning of today, you will be picked up from the train station or your hotel lobby by your private tour guide and driver, then set out for today’s exciting things to do.

Start with an interesting visit to Humble Administrator’s Garden, one of the Four Greatest Gardens in China as well as the largest and most grandiose one among all Suzhou Gardens. The Classical Gardens of Suzhou was listed as the World Heritage Site in 1997 because “the gardens of Suzhou” represent the development of Chinese landscape garden design over more than two thousand years", and they are the "most refined form" of garden art”, according to UNESCO. Among all the Suzhou Gardens, Humble Administrators’ Garden is the largest one in Suzhou and is considered by some to be the finest garden in all of southern China. It is an artistic combination of buildings, ponds, bridges, paths and trees arranged in a specific manner. Scenic, peaceful and eloquent, everything in the garden tells a story of the past time. You will spend about 1.5 hours exploring the spectacular beauty of the Humble Administrator’s Garden, then move on to the most outstanding museum in Suzhou – Suzhou Museum which is the masterpiece of the world famous architect I. M. Pei who has built Louvre's pyramids in Paris, Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, the Miho Museum in Japan and many extraordinary buildings all over the world. While he was designing the Suzhou Museum, he combined the features of classical Suzhou Gardens with modern and fashionable characteristics. The museum has collected more than 40,000 decent items of ancient Chinese art, ancient Chinese paintings, calligraphy, porcelains, jade wares, handmade crafts, etc., from bronze ages to Ming and Qing Dynasties.

In the afternoon, you will visit another masterpiece of the Classical Gardens of Suzhou - Master of the Nets Garden, first constructed in 1140 by Shi Zhengzhi to express his aspiration to live a simple life as a fish man. Though as the smallest garden among all Suzhou Gardens, the Master of the Nets Garden is regarded as the most impressive one because of its adept skills for mastering the techniques of relative dimension, contrast, foil, sequence and depth, and borrowed scenery to make the visitor has an illusion that the garden is much greater than its actual size. At the same time, the Master of the Nets Garden is much more tranquil than others.

After the tour, be transferred to your hotel. Have a good rest!

• Our Guests Visiting Humble Administrator's Garden
• Suzhou Museum
• Master of the Nets Garden

Day 2 Suzhou Tour & Departure (B, L)

Today's highlights: Lingering Garden, Suzhou Ancient Grand Canal, Suzhou Silk Museum

In this morning, after enjoying your breakfast, you will be driven a few kilometers to next attraction - Lingering Garden, one of the Four Greatest Gardens in China as well as the perfect representative of traditional Suzhou Gardens. The Lingering Garden has synthesized almost all the classic features of Suzhou gardens. It is composed of residential areas, shrines, family temple and garden, making fully use of the changings between big and small, bend and straight, bright and dark, tall and low, tight and disperse, with the surrounding landscapes, such as trees, flowers, lake, sky, as backgrounds to create an ingenious system of space. Stepping into the garden, you will find the buildings, rockeries, corridors, pavilions, ponds and trees in Lingering Garden are all standing in the best place, neither too crowded nor too sporadic. The most incredible thing is that, in the same place, looking from different angles, you can enjoy different scenery. Making a step, you will get another feeling of another kind of scenery.

After that, you will go to take an enjoyable and relaxing cruise (for about 25 minutes) on the Suzhou Ancient Grand Canal - watch the old buildings and streets passing by, come across ancient stone bridges, experience the authentic local living... Next, transfer to Suzhou Silk Museum which is China’s first professional silk museum, established in 1989. The museum aims to promote silk culture, protect silk relics, preserve silk craftsmanship, and spread knowledge about silk. Suzhou, known as the "Capital of Silk and Land of Brocade," has a long history in silk production. As early as the Neolithic period, primitive silk weaving appeared, and during the Qin and Han dynasties, it became a major silk-producing region in southern China.

After the tour, your guide and driver will escort you to the railway station to catch the train to your next destination. Service ends!

• Lingering Garden Spring View, Take by Our Guest from Danmark
• Suzhou Grand Canal Boats
• Woo's Group from Latvia visited Lingering Garden in April 2019