2014.05.04 Suzhou old town (south)

Sunday (typically British: day without the Sun) 4th of May, was supposed to be used to walk the old part of Suzhou across. It started well at the Pan gate (seen earlier in the night on the movie). 

Pan gate

 

Even though pretty early, there were many people, usually older, practicing Tai Chi. It is actually clever way of keeping in good condition: slow movements neither require stamina nor overload joints, but still keep muscles working - especially core, because of lot of figures involving balance.

Ruiguang Pagoda

Canglang Pavilion

Canglang Pavillion

Canglang Pavilion

As Suzhou is famous (in China at least) for its gardens, being also on the Unesco's World Heritage List, I planned to visit 3 of them. I passed by the Canglang Pavillion and paid visit to the Master of the Nets Garden.

Twin pagodas

Twin pagodas

Twin pagodas area also houses museum of ancient stonemaking. Very realistic and detailed examples from Ming dynasty era were again my favourite.

Quing Dynasty The military officer coming back from success in war

Quing Dynasty Longer life and happiness

I did not plan to visit City Wall Museum, rather pass it on the way to other places, but it started raining so heavily it was time to dry a bit. The wall itself, being reconstructed, looks a bit artificial.

I’m happy I popped in the museum: it actually covers not only history of the wall, but the whole old tow within it. It’s got nice display of maps, old photos, a model of the old town (laser cut, illuminated) and a street scene.

Unfortunately the day ended prematurely because of rain.

One thing to mention is huge difference between the old part and the industrial park: within old city walls, along the canals there are narrow streets (many more like a pavement, but still used by cars), creating labyrinths between tiny rows of barracks. Clutter, dirt, smell – pretty much slums. Newer, 3 or 4-storey blocks of flats do not look much better. It was actually very obvious where the borderline of Suzhou industrial Park zone is, as suddenly the road widened and all became organized and clean.

Navigating was a bit tough: on the tourist maps the attracions are located only roughly, and in most cases their entrances are on back streets, with signposts easy to miss. For whatever reason there is an offset in Google Maps between road and satelite view, so the layouts I prepared were useless. Click to see the path of my walk with the most important waypoints added.