During my trip to Shanghai I stayed deux days and a half in Suzhou.the city itself is very charming, with its numerous canals and pagodas and museums (especially the new Suzhou museum). however its fabulous gardens are what made the city famous and I managed to visit six of them : the humble administrator's garden, the lion forest garden, the lovers' retreat garden, the master of the nets garden, the canglang pavillion and the lingering garden.

the Humble Administrator's Garden is certainly the most impressive of the lot (and the largest). the sight of the lotus ponds surrounded by traditionnal buildings is very attractive. however the garden was quite crowded (with lots of tourists groups and megaphones) and that kinda ruined the experience for me. in the garden there's also a garden museum which is very informative and links the different gardens together.

Near the Humble Administrator's garden is the Lion Forest garden. now i was really disappointed by this one. it was far more crowded than the previous one and its smallest size made things worse. people were everywhere, climbing the rockeries (which btw were remarkable and the garden's main feature) or queuing in the ancient buildings. for me this was not the way to experience the garden, far from it. (it was a summer sunday afternoon, mind you, so remember never to visit this garden on this kind of day!)

A little further is the lovers' retreat garden. you can easily reach it by foot from the lion forest garden (the walk through the old lanes and canals while watching the inhabitants in their everyday life - i noticed two or three ancient wells i passed by- is a pleasure). now there were very few tourists in this one! while it may not be as impressive as the others, this small garden felt very peaceful and had wonderful windows.

i began the next day by visiting the master-of-the-nets garden. this is said to be the smallest of the lot, but i didn't feel so. it had marvelous buildings and courtyards. most importantly, it wasn't heavily visited (it was a monday morning, so that may not always be true).

not far from it is the canglang pavillion (again, barely visited). it was the wildest looking of the lot. from time to time you could feel as though you were really in a natural forest on a hill. the sound and sight of the wind shaking the ancient trees and the green leaves falling gently to the ground will always be an unforgettable experience for me. the garden's windows are also worthy of attention, while its location , overlooking a canal and old houses, is pretty romantic.

the last garden i visited was the Lingering garden on the next day. at first when i entered the garden, i feared it would be as overcrowded as the lion forest garden. however despite the eventual crowds the garden was large enough to allow me some moments of serenity and contemplation. this one was almost as impressive as the humble administrator's garden, and i especially enjoyed its plants and its rockeries. a beautiful end to my stay in Suzhou.

All in all, i found all the gardens i visited to be great and they compliment each other well. each garden has its own particular features and its own personality. the many details (windows, painting-like views, piece of architecture...) are wonderful.