Suzhou is home to some wonderful classical-style gardens in China. The following are the greatest examples.
Zhuozheng Yuan
It's the largest and the most famous garden in Suzhou, perhaps the finest of its type in China. Throughout the centuries, the central part of the garden still contains its original Ming Dynasty flavor. Since it is such a large garden, with caves, forests, islands, bridges, paths, and all sorts of pavilions and halls, no simple description of the garden will do.
Liu Yuan
The 2.3-hectare Liu Yuan was built in 1593. The garden has Chinese couplets beside nearly every gate and door. These are two-line poems written in classical Chinese. Their use in the garden is meant to set the tone for each section and add to the reflective nature of the experience by describing or drawing attention to different features of the garden in a poetic way.
Shizilin
At a little less than one hectare in size, Shizilin was built in 1342. The garden gets its name because it is filled with strangely shaped rocks which are said to look like lions posing in various shapes. The garden's many paths wind through caves and more rocks than can be counted, making it easy to get lost. Apart from being beautiful and interesting, the garden is perhaps the oldest rock garden of its kind, making it important historically.
Huanxiu Shanzhuang
At 0.2 hectares, Huanxiu Shanzhuang is one of the smallest of the important gardens in Suzhou. Centered in a pond, a huge rockery, 7.2 meters in height, was created, using nearly every technique known in the art form. A winding path goes through and around the rockery, allowing for it to be viewed from many directions — each direction giving a different idea of what the rocks represent.
