Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
price bracket - with CITS next door, and
convenient for some good restaurants. The
three- or four-bed rooms can work out fairly
cheap if you bring enough friends to fill
them.
Nanlin
20 Gun Xiu Fang, Shiquan Jie
T
0512/68017888,
W
www.nanlin.cn.
A sprawling mansion with an immaculate
lobby, surrounded by spacious and leafy
gardens. The new wing has luxury rooms,
while the old wing still offers reasonably
priced doubles and triples.
8
New Century
23 Guangji Lu
T
0512/
65338888. Out in the west of the city,
beyond the moat (take bus #7 from the train
station), with nicely decorated, airy rooms.
6
Sheraton
259 Xinshi Lu, near Pan Men in
the southwest of town
T
0512/65103388,
W
www.sheraton.com/suzhou. A pastiche
Chinese mansion sprawling over two city
blocks, Suzhou's best (and most expensive)
international-standard hotel has double
rooms from ¥1560. A stream runs through
the middle of the grounds, and there are
serene gardens and indoor and outdoor
swimming pools.
9
.
Suzhou International Youth Hostel
186
Zhuhui Lu
T
0512/65180266. A bit out of
the way, but worth it for their decent dorm
beds (though stick with the Dongwu if you
want a room). They also rent out bikes for
¥20 a day. From the station, take bus #2
and get off outside the Bamboo Grove
Hotel. Dorm beds ¥50.
4
The City
The three most famous gardens -
Wangshi Yuan
,
Shizi Lin
L
and
Zhuozheng
Yu a n
- attract a stream of visitors all year round, but many of the equally
beautiful yet lesser-known gardens, notably
Canglang Ting
and
Ou Yuan
, are
comparatively serene and crowd-free. Seasons make surprisingly little difference
as the gardens can be appreciated at any time of year, although springtime brings
more blossom and brighter colours. Suzhou also has some rather charming
temples
and
pagodas
, and a couple of decent
museums
.
Beisi Ta and the Suzhou Silk Museum
A few minutes' walk south down Renmin Lu from the train station, the
sixteenth-century
Beisi Ta
(North Temple Pagoda; daily 7.45am-5pm; ¥25)
looms up unmistakeably. At 76m the pagoda is the tallest Chinese pagoda south
of the Yangzi, though it retains only nine of its original eleven storeys. Climbing
it gives an excellent view over some of Suzhou's more conspicuous features -
the Shuang Ta, the Xuanmiao Guan, and, in the far southwest corner, the
Ruiguang Ta. There's also a pleasant teahouse on site.
Virtually opposite, also on Renmin Lu, the
Suzhou Silk Museum
(daily
9am-5.30pm; ¥7) is one of China's better-presented museums, labelled in
English throughout. Starting from the legendary inventor of silk, Lei Zu, the
Chinese gardens
Gardens, above all, are what Suzhou is all about. They have been laid out here since
the Song dynasty, a thousand years ago, and in their Ming and Qing heyday it is said
that the city had two hundred of them.
Chinese gardens do not set out to improve upon a slice of nature or to look
natural. As with painting, sculpture and poetry, the aim is to produce for contempla-
tion the balance, harmony, proportion and variety which the Chinese seek in life.
Little pavilions and terraces are used to suggest a larger scale, undulating covered
walkways and galleries to give a downward view, and intricate interlocking groups of
rock and bamboo to hint at, and half conceal, what lies beyond. Almost everything
you see has some symbolic significance - the pine tree and the crane for long life,
mandarin ducks for married bliss, for example.
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