Visiting Shuzhou

I had a chance to spend an afternoon in the city of Suzhou, about an hour from Shanghai. Suzhou is famous for its canals and hundreds-of-year-old gardens. We took the train to the city, which was an interesting experience (see another blog entry on the train), including the train station full of migrants and day-trippers to the city.

I must admit I was disappointed by Suzhou, as neither the gardens not canals lived up to my expectations. Perhaps these were set too high by hearing that Suzhou was like Venice or Amsterdam with canals, gardens, etc. The gardens were nice and very large, though not maintained as well as I'd hoped. More challenging were the canals, which had limited interesting areas, far less than similar canals in old Shanghai - I was really looking for canal-side cafes and tables, but perhaps I'll find them on future trips.