Suzhou: what to see, where to stay and how to get around

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Suzhou, founded about 514 BC as the capital of the kingdom of Wu, is a city of canals and of the walled gardens that retired officials and scholars built to create whole landscapes within a few courtyards. Nine of them became a World Heritage site in 1997. China requires a visa; check the rules for Israeli passports. Half a day; tickets for the gardens and the museum must be booked online, often with a Chinese ID or passport.

A short history of Suzhou

According to tradition, Suzhou was founded in 514 BC as the capital of the state of Wu, and it is one of the oldest cities in the Yangtze region. The canals that cross it and the Grand Canal that passes nearby made it a centre of the silk and rice trade. For centuries officials and wealthy merchants built walled private gardens here, in which rocks, water, pavilions and trees create a miniature landscape; the earliest of them, the Canglang Pavilion, dates from the 11th century. In 1997 the Classical Gardens of Suzhou were declared a World Heritage Site.

The ten best sights in Suzhou

1
Humble Administrator’s Garden
The largest garden; book tickets ahead
2
Suzhou Museum
I. M. Pei’s museum; free, book ahead
3
Lion Grove Garden
A maze of fantastic rocks
4
North Temple Pagoda
Nine storeys over the old city
5
Suzhou Silk Museum
Silkworms and looms
6
Couple’s Garden Retreat
A quiet garden on the canal
7
Pingtan Museum
Suzhou storytelling with lute and song
8
Xuanmiao Temple
A Taoist temple with a hall of 1179
9
Master of the Nets Garden
The smallest garden; evening music
10
Canglang Pavilion
The oldest surviving garden

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What is an audio walk?

Tours in Suzhou →

A guide in your headphones: open the walk on our site, walk from stop to stop, and at each one your phone tells its story. No guide, no group, and free. This is the first walk in Suzhou:

Free walking tours in Suzhou

The great gardens of the north

Humble Administrator’s Garden · The largest of the gardens, laid out around 1510 by Wang Xianchen, a censor who retired from court. He took the name from an old essay saying that watering one’s garden is the politics of a humble man. More than half of it is water, with pavilions set so that each window frames a new view.
Suzhou Museum · A museum of white walls and grey stone opened in 2006, designed by the architect I. M. Pei in his late eighties, as a modern version of a Suzhou garden. Pei’s own family came from Suzhou, and in his childhood they owned the Lion Grove Garden next door.
Lion Grove Garden · A garden begun in 1342 by Buddhist monks, built around a labyrinth of Taihu rocks, limestone eroded into holes by the waters of the great lake, which are said to look like lions. The Qianlong emperor loved it so much he had copies built in his palaces.
Couple’s Garden Retreat · A garden bought in the 1870s by a retired official and his poet wife, with two halves, east and west, as a symbol of their marriage; it backs onto a canal where boats still pass.
Pingjiang Road · A street running beside a canal, with whitewashed houses, arched bridges and teahouses. A stone map of the city carved in 1229 shows this street and its canal on the same line as today.
Pingtan Museum · The house of pingtan, Suzhou storytelling in the soft local dialect, in which a pair of performers with a pipa lute and a three-stringed sanxian sing and tell long tales; there are performances in the afternoons.

The south of the old city

The southern half of the old city holds the smallest and the oldest of the gardens and the last gate of the city wall. Half a day; the Master of the Nets has music in the evenings.

Xuanmiao Temple · A Taoist temple said to go back to the third century, whose main hall, built in 1179, is one of the largest old wooden halls south of the Yangtze, in the middle of the busy shopping street.
Master of the Nets Garden · The smallest of the great gardens, named after a retired official who called himself a fisherman. One of its courtyards was copied stone by stone by Suzhou craftsmen for the Metropolitan Museum in New York in 1981, as the Astor Court.
Canglang Pavilion · The oldest surviving garden in Suzhou, made in 1044 by the poet Su Shunqin after he was dismissed from office, unusual for being open to the canal outside rather than walled off from it.
Ruiguang Pagoda · A brick pagoda of 1004 in which, in 1978, a hidden treasure was found: a small jewelled wooden pagoda holding Buddhist relics, now in the Suzhou Museum.
Panmen Gate · The only surviving gate of the city wall that combines a land gate with a water gate for boats, rebuilt in 1351 on the line of the walls of the ancient kingdom of Wu.
Jinji Lake · East of the old city, the industrial park built with Singapore from 1994 around a lake, now a skyline of towers, among them the Gate to the East, an arch some three hundred metres high nicknamed the trousers.

Tiger Hill and the canal

North-west of the old city a canal street leads to Tiger Hill, and the Grand Canal passes the temple of the most famous poem about Suzhou. Half a day, partly by boat.

Lingering Garden · A garden of long covered corridors with lattice windows, each of a different pattern, and the Cloud-Capped Peak, a single Taihu rock about six and a half metres tall, said to be the largest in any Suzhou garden.
Shantang Street · A canal and street of about three and a half kilometres built in 825 by the poet Bai Juyi, then governor of Suzhou, to link the city with Tiger Hill; lantern-lit boats run along it in the evening.
Tiger Hill Pagoda · A brick pagoda finished in 961 that leans by over two metres at the top, China’s leaning tower. Below it, the Sword Pond is said to hide the tomb of King Helü of Wu, the founder of Suzhou, buried with three thousand swords.
Hanshan Temple · A temple by the Grand Canal made famous by the Tang poem Night Mooring at Maple Bridge, in which a sleepless traveller hears its bell at midnight. Every New Year’s Eve the bell is struck a hundred and eight times, and many visitors come from Japan, where the poem is learned in school.
North Temple Pagoda · A nine-storey pagoda of about seventy-six metres, one of the tallest old pagodas south of the Yangtze, which can be climbed for a view over the grey roofs and canals of the old city.
Tongli · A water town south of the city, of canals and stone bridges, with the Retreat and Reflection Garden built in 1885 by an official dismissed from his post, who named it for what he meant to do there.

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Getting to Suzhou and getting around

Suzhou Station · Shanghai in about half an hour by high-speed train

Cheap eats in Suzhou

Suzhou cooking is sweet and delicate: squirrel-shaped mandarin fish, scored, fried and covered in a sweet-and-sour sauce; Suzhou noodles in a dark broth with toppings chosen from a list; and in autumn, hairy crabs from Yangcheng Lake. A bowl of noodles costs about three to five dollars.

Guanqian Street · Noodle houses for breakfast
Pingjiang Road · Teahouses and sweets
Shantang Street · Snack stalls on the canal

Museums in Suzhou

Suzhou’s museums are its architecture, its silk and its storytelling.

Suzhou Museum · I. M. Pei’s building
Suzhou Silk Museum · Silkworms and looms
Pingtan Museum · Storytelling

Nature and day trips near Suzhou

Nature here is gardened: rocks, water and plants arranged as landscapes in miniature.

Humble Administrator’s Garden · Lotus ponds
Tiger Hill Pagoda · The wooded hill
Jinji Lake · Lakeside paths

Things to do in Suzhou with kids

With children: a rock maze, a leaning pagoda, boats on the canals and silkworms.

Lion Grove Garden · The rock maze
Suzhou Silk Museum · Live silkworms
Shantang Street · A canal boat

Holy places in Suzhou

Buddhist and Taoist temples and pagodas among the gardens.

Hanshan Temple · The midnight bell
Xuanmiao Temple · The Taoist hall
North Temple Pagoda · The tall pagoda

Nightlife in Suzhou

Suzhou’s evenings are music in a garden, lantern-lit canals and the bars by Jinji Lake.

Master of the Nets Garden · The garden at night
Pingjiang Road · Canal bars
Jinji Lake · The lit skyline

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Frequently asked questions about Suzhou

What is there to see in Suzhou?

The top sights in Suzhou are Humble Administrator’s Garden, Suzhou Museum and Lion Grove Garden. The full list on this page has 10 sights, each with a photo and a short note.

How many days do you need in Suzhou?

Three to four days are enough to see the best of Suzhou without rushing, including at least one walking tour.

Is there a free walking tour in Suzhou?

Yes. sleepntrip has 3 free audio walks in Suzhou, with no guide and no group: your phone tells the story at every stop. The first one: The great gardens of the north.

How do you get to Suzhou and get around?

The main ways are Suzhou Station. Full details are in the transport section on this page.

Where to stay in Suzhou, and for how much?

sleepntrip shows only rooms in Suzhou that meet nine conditions: a good location, high guest scores, cleanliness, and a price of up to $80 a night for two. Pick your dates and see what is free.

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