Pick you up after breakfast at your Shanghai hotel at 8:00am

Morning

It takes around 2 hours drive from Shanghai - Suzhou city

Tongli Water Village -Tongli has a similar history and natural scenery compared with Zhouzhuang, but is much less crowded. Tongli also has its own unique features which are worth exploring and experiencing. Tongli is divided into seven islands intersected by 15 canals. Because of the landscape, almost all of the buildings in the town are along the waterfront. In front of the buildings, small stairs leading to the canals were built, which are convenient for residents to wash clothes and for traveling around the town by boat.

Lunch will be at a local?restaurant or by your request in Suzhou city at your own cost

Afternoon :

Panmen Gate - it’s the oldest city gate of Suzhou and the only existing water and land gate in China. The gate is located on the south-west corner of the Main Canal Suzhou. Originally built during the Warring States Period in the state of Wu, historians estimate it to be around 2,500 years old.

It is composed of two water passages, three land passages and the outside gate. The canal outside the gate is the oldest section of the Grand Canal that was also built 2,500 years ago. In its vicinity, there is a 1,000-year-old pagoda named Ruiguang Pagoda, the earliest pagoda in Suzhou; and the Wu Bridge, the entrance to the gate at that time over the water passage and the highest bridge in Suzhou at the time.

Garden of Master of Nets - It is the smallest of the Suzhou residential gardens, yet it is the most impressive because of its use of space which creates the illusion of an area that is much greater than its actual size. Even more than the architectural achievement is the mood of tranquility and harmony that it embodies.it is recognized with other classical Suzhou gardens as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The garden demonstrates Chinese garden designers' adept skills for synthesizing art, nature, and architecture to create unique metaphysical masterpieces.

This exquisite Master of Nets Garden was first designed during the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279) as a residence for a government official. At that time, the garden was named "the Hall of Ten Thousand Books" because the owner housed numerous books in three studies within the garden. Later on, it went through vicissitudes in different dynasties until an official named Song Zongyuan bought and restored the garden around 1765 in the Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1911). It is said that in a moment of frustration with bureaucracy he declared that he would rather be a fisherman than a bureaucrat. Therefore, he changed the name of this garden to "Wangshi Yuan", meaning a fisher’s garden in English, to express his will.

Shanghai Hotel drop off in the end of the tour around 17:00pm

Suggested to start the tour at 8:00am from the lobby of your hotel in Shanghai city , it’s better to start the tour at 7:00am during the Chinese holiday period , our tour guide will pick you up from your hotel lobby with the car and chauffeur and drop you off at your hotel after the tour.