Jiangnan,
and the water towns

Day-by-day itinerary

1. Arrival in Shanghai

   Land at Pudong and transfer to your hotel. The evening is free: a first walk on the Bund, or straight into the food of the Old Town around Yu Garden.

2. Shanghai: the Bund and beyond

   The Bund in the morning, then a Pudong viewing deck, then the plane trees and 1920s villas of the French Concession, the best district in the city for walking.

3. Suzhou and its classical gardens

   Bullet train to Suzhou, twenty-five minutes away, for the Humble Administrator's Garden and the Master of the Nets, the finest of China's scholar gardens.

4. Wuzhen water town

   Drive to Wuzhen and sleep inside the old town, among canals, stone bridges and wooden houses lit at night, once the day visitors have gone home.

5. Hangzhou and West Lake

   On to Hangzhou and West Lake, the landscape Chinese poetry has praised for a thousand years, with its causeways, pagodas and the Leifeng Pagoda at dusk.

6. Longjing tea and Lingyin Temple

   The Longjing tea villages, where the finest green tea in China is grown, and the Lingyin Temple, with its grottoes of Buddhist carvings.

7. Back to Shanghai

   Return to Shanghai for a last free afternoon: shopping on Nanjing Road, the Shanghai Museum, a slow lunch, or a final walk along the Bund at dusk.

8. Departure

   Transfer to Pudong or Hongqiao airport for your flight home. With a late departure we can hold your luggage and arrange a last half-day in the city.