Lingering Garden

Xu Taishi built the East Garden in the Ming Wanli era; Liu Shu's Hanbi (Cold Green) Villa in the Qing dynasty; the Guanyun Peak (a 6.5m Taihu rock, first of the 'Three Famous Rocks of Jiangnan'), the Wufeng Xian Hall (the 'finest hall of Jiangnan', a nanmu-wood hall), and a 700m corridor with lattice windows; one of China's Four Great Gardens (Summer Palace, Chengde Mountain Resort, Humble Administrator's Garden, Lingering Garden). Started in the Ming Wanli era as Xu Taishi's East Garden, rebuilt in the Qing by Liu Shu as Hanbi Villa, and rebuilt and renamed the Lingering Garden by Lai Shengkang after the Taiping Rebellion, it was named alongside the Summer Palace, the Chengde Mountain Resort and the Humble Administrator's Garden as China's Four Great Gardens in 1961. The Guanyun Peak in the garden stands 6.5 meters tall, possessing all four virtues of a scholar's rock — thin, wrinkled, perforated and porous — ranked first among the Three Famous Rocks of Jiangnan, a lone spire in the courtyard like the garden's backbone; the Wufeng Xian Hall is built of nanmu wood, and its exquisite furnishings earn it the title 'finest hall of Jiangnan'. The 700-meter corridor curves with the terrain, its hundreds of lattice windows no two alike — for a living textbook of scenery shifting with every step, nothing beats the Lingering Garden; wintersweet beside ancient cypresses in winter, or eaves dripping in the rain, show Jiangnan charm at its best.

Getting there: Metro Line 2, Shilu Station