Jiangsu

The province of Jiangsu, between Shanghai to the east and the interior of China to the west, has much to keep you occupied for days or weeks. The provincial capital of Nanjing is a former capital of China and home to many Ming Dynasty-related sights as well as the tasteful Nanjing Massacre Museum depicting the horrors of the massacre here in 1937 committed by Japanese troops.

Nearby Suzhou is famed as the garden city of China. Here you will find some of the very best examples of Chinese garden art, notably the intricate Garden of the Master of the Nets, the Lingering Garden and the Humble Administrator’s Garden. Since Suzhou lies in the vast Yangtze River Delta it is also a canal town, but unfortunately many of the canals have now disappeared. The silk museum in Suzhou is one of the country’s best, and besides these well-known sights the city is also home to a range of temples and pagodas, notably the North Pagoda,
regarded as the tallest south of the Yangtze River.

Also in the delta you will find many of the so-called water-and-canal towns. These grew rich on the trade of silk and spices along the Yangtze and became famous for their trademark Lower Yangtze-style whitewashed houses. There are literally hundreds of them, but most people seek out towns and villages like Tongli, Luzhi or Qiandeng where you can spend a day enjoying the relaxed pace of life by the canals.

In the far north of the province Xuzhou is home to great examples of imperial burials as some former emperors of dynasties of the past were buried here.