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                                                      CHINESE GARDENS

                               - Wangshi Yuan - 

                                                           - the Garden of the Master of the Nets -

Page added:  2021-12-19

Suzhou is Chinas garden city number one!

Here the art of gardening has been perfected over about 1500 years. The gardens were typically made by officials from the Imperial Court , and by creating those gardens well away from Beijing , their desire was simply to "get away from it all" and to cultivate art , philosophy , music and poetry in surroundings that perfectly imitated nature at its very best - - -

And they did very well indeed - - So well, - that the Suzhou Gardens are now on Unesco's list of World Heritage items.

Of the once more than 200 gardens,- only 69 remains today, and they are well worth a visit. Here I will show pictures from some of those gardens, and start with Wangshi Yuan,- the "Garden of the Master of the Nets" -, which was made for about 900 years ago.

This garden is quite small, and it is truly amazing to see how much "nature" the Suzhou garden designers could squeeze into such a small area , and make it appear so big - - -

The harmony is perfect ,- and there are so many small details to admire - - - See for yourself,- but be warned, that we are now back on the "tourist trail" again , which means that the harmony and peace is constantly broken by long lines of tourists , working their way through the garden compound whenever a tourist bus is unloading its passengers, - and that seems to take place more or less continuously - - -

Therefore it did require quite a lot of patience , to get the following pictures without tourist groups constantly spoiling the views - - -

Please enjoy my impressions from "The Garden of the "Master of the Nets"- - -