City guide · Jiangsu
Taihu on one side, a Grand Buddha on the next hill, and ribs sweet enough to argue about — the most underrated city on the Yangtze delta.
Reviewed by our Beijing team Updated 2026-10-10
The short version
City guide
Photographs from the coast, and what other travellers wrote afterwards.
Getting here from Shanghai is easy — the trains run all day, so a weekend is genuinely enough, though two days means choosing. We only managed two places. Lingshan is a matter of taste: at ¥210, if you are not really into Buddhism, give it a miss.
A traveller's note, 'Two Days by Taihu and Below Hui Shan'
The lake is vast and the old canal is slow, and between them they tell you the city's past and its future. If you want to know a place, start with the people who came out of it — so one afternoon I finally went looking for their old houses.
A traveller's note, 'Walking Jiangnan: Wuxi'
Wuxi is a lake city before it is anything else. Taihu, the third-largest freshwater lake in China, presses against its southern edge; the Yangtze runs to the north; the Grand Canal cuts through the middle; and the low hills of Xi Shan and Hui Shan rise right at the western edge of town. Everything worth seeing here is either on that water or looking at it.
The name is an old joke that outlived its punchline: 'Wu' for the hills, 'xi' for the tin those hills were supposed to hold, mined out by the Han dynasty and leaving the place literally called no-tin. The history underneath is better. About 3,000 years ago Taibo, the eldest son of a Zhou king, walked away from a succession fight and settled here, founding the state of Wu; the canal and the reclaimed polders of the north later made it one of the empire's granaries, and its mills and silk filatures made it one of China's first industrial cities.
What you actually notice on the ground is a city with two faces, and it wears them without embarrassment. There are Ming gardens, temple halls and old towns of white walls and grey tiles; there are wide new boulevards, towers of glass, and one of the highest reported happiness levels in the country. It is competitive and fast, and it is also a very pleasant place to walk.
For a visitor the city resolves into three tidy days: the lake and its peninsula, the hill with the Buddha on it, and the old quarter where the canal runs past the bars. Add a fourth and you reach Yixing's caves and bamboo sea, or Jiangyin on the Yangtze, which is where Xu Xiake — China's patron saint of walking — was born.
Wuxi
Seven things that are worth rearranging a day for.
Highlights
From late March to mid-April the Cherry Blossom Valley at Yuantouzhu turns pink above the open water — about 30,000 trees, a Sino-Japanese friendship grove among them, and the classic Jiangnan image of blossom against a lake. The festival programme runs the whole window, with parades, stage shows and a temporary post office in the valley.
Lingshan's Grand Buddha stands on a ridge above the lake in a bowl of three hills, and beneath it is the Brahma Palace — Dongyang wood carving, Dunhuang murals, glazed glasswork, Yangzhou lacquer and cloisonné in one gilded building you enter in shoe covers. The Nine Dragons Bathing the Buddha fountain performs four times a day.
Hui Shan Spring on the edge of Xihui Park is ranked the second-best spring under heaven, and it is the water that gave the blind musician Abing the tune everyone knows as 'Erquan Yingyue'. The park also holds Jichang Garden, a Ming garden with a fraction of Suzhou's visitors.
Huishan figurines are made from the black clay a metre below the hillside — soft, fine, it takes a fingerprint without cracking and does not split as it dries. Rough goods are the bright, simple auspicious pieces like the Great Fortune baby; fine goods are hand-pinched opera and myth figures. National intangible heritage, and cheap to buy.
Wuxi cooking pushes sugar further than anywhere else in Jiangsu. Spareribs braised dark and glossy, soup dumplings whose filling is built by beating water into the mince so they burst, crab-roe dumplings in season, and Yangshan peaches that really do melt. Visitors from outside Jiangnan find it sweeter than expected — that is the point.
Nanchang Street is old houses built straight against the water, now full of cafés, bars and studios, with no path between the buildings and the canal — you look from the bridge, then walk the pedestrian stretch. It is the clearest picture in the region of an old canal quarter turning into a night out.
Suggested routes
The short trip that most Shanghai weekenders actually do — one big lake day, one old-town day.
Buy water and snacks before you go in; everything inside the park is priced for a captive market. Enter at Chongshan or Dushan gate and head straight for the pier — the boat to Taihu Fairy Island is in your ticket and the island is the best hour in the park.
Back on shore, work the southern section, then the north if you still have legs: Luding Hill's pavilion for the view over the lake, the orchid garden, the Guangfu Temple where the vegetarian noodles have a following. If you are short on time, stick to the island, 'Baoyun Wuyue', the 'finest spot on Taihu' and Wanlang Bridge.
Stops: Taihu Fairy IslandLuding HillGuangfu TempleWanlang Bridge
Bus out to Xihui Park in the morning — Jichang Garden and the Second Spring, and pay the extra for the azalea garden if it is flowering; azalea and plum are the city's two official flowers.
Come out of the park into Huishan Ancient Town next door: tofu pudding, soup dumplings, a hundred-odd ancestral halls, and a clay figurine workshop. Finish the day on Nanchang Street for dinner and the canal at night.
Stops: Xihui ParkJichang GardenHuishan Ancient TownNanchang Street
Buddha, lake, gardens — the route the local guides print, with the canal as the evening default.
Go to Lingshan first thing and give it four hours: the Grand Buddha, the Brahma Palace, the Nine Dragons fountain and the Eight Merits Water. The ride back into town is about two hours by bus, so do not plan anything tight afterwards.
Dinner on Chong'an Street — Taihu's three whites, braised ribs and soup dumplings. If you still have energy, Nanchang Street on the old canal for a walk and a drink. Sleep around Lihu in Binhu district.
Stops: LingshanBrahma PalaceChong'an StreetNanchang Street
Yuantouzhu in the morning: pier first, boat to Taihu Fairy Island, then the southern section. Half a day will not finish the park, so pick the highlights deliberately.
If time and legs allow, continue to Three Kingdoms City and Water Margin City next to each other on the lake — the CCTV sets where 'Liu Bei's wedding', 'Burning Red Cliff' and 'Borrowing Arrows with Straw Boats' were shot. The live horseback shows are the reason to go.
Stops: YuantouzhuTaihu Fairy IslandThree Kingdoms CityWater Margin City
Liyuan early, when the water garden is quiet — Fan Li and Xi Shi's legendary retreat, four little zones of rockery, causeway, long corridor and layered water.
Then Meiyuan for the plum and the hill planting, lunch, and finally Xihui Park and Huishan Ancient Town, which are next to each other and work perfectly in sequence.
Stops: LiyuanMeiyuanXihui ParkHuishan Ancient Town
The full version: add a forest-park day and a day north to Jiangyin on the Yangtze.
A whole day at the Buddhist site — Buddha, Brahma Palace, fountain, the Five Altars city — then the evening on Nanchang Street hunting for snacks in the old lanes and feeling the wind off the canal.
Stops: LingshanNanchang Street
Yuantouzhu for the day, then the film sets at Three Kingdoms City and Water Margin City if you have anything left.
Stops: YuantouzhuWater Margin City
Liyuan, Meiyuan, Xihui Park and Huishan Ancient Town in one slow sweep — the four are close and the ¥170 combo ticket covers three of them.
Stops: LiyuanMeiyuanXihui Park
Hui Shan Forest Park for the air and the green, then back down into Huishan Ancient Town: the ancestral halls, Jichang Garden, Hui Shan Old Street, the cross street and the clay figurine factory.
Stops: Hui Shan Forest ParkHuishan Ancient Town
Under an hour away. Start at Huaxi Village, then E'binzui Park to look at the Yangtze, and finish at Xu Xiake's former home — a Ming-dynasty Jiangnan house belonging to the man every Chinese traveller claims as an ancestor.
Stops: Huaxi VillageE'binzui ParkXu Xiake's former home
Sights
The lake, in one place
A peninsula lying on the north-west shore of Taihu, named for the rock at its tip that looks like a turtle raising its head. Inside are Chongshan Hidden Grace, Luding Hill, the 'spring waves at the turtle's head', Hengyun Villa, Guangfu Temple, Taihu Fairy Island, the orchid garden and the cherry grove. Best month is April, when the blossom sits against the open water; the festival runs late March to mid-April.
Tip Whichever gate you come in by, go to the pier first and take the boat to Taihu Fairy Island. Then the southern section, then the north. To see the whole park properly you need a day; if you only have hours, do the island, 'Baoyun Wuyue', the 'finest spot on Taihu' and Wanlang Bridge.
Grand Buddha
The Grand Buddha stands 88 m tall on a ridge in the Taihu national resort area, three hills around it and unusually clean air. Below it is the Brahma Palace, called the cathedral of the east — Dongyang wood carving, murals by Dunhuang craftsmen, giant glazed glasswork, Ou-su relief, Yangzhou lacquer, oil paintings and cloisonné, all in one building you enter wearing shoe covers. Two shows run through the day.
Tip Food inside the park is expensive — a bowl of plain noodle soup is ¥20 and a few vegetable dishes come close to ¥300. The ¥45 buffet inside the Brahma Palace is better value and the room is worth sitting in. Allow four hours, plus about two hours back into town.
Garden and spring
Two things in one ticket area, and the mistake visitors make is only doing the first. Xihui Park is the public park; the Xihui scenic area behind it holds Jichang Garden, a Ming garden that is everything people come to Suzhou for minus the crowd, and Hui Shan Spring, ranked the second spring under heaven. This is the water behind 'Erquan Yingyue'.
Tip Do not just walk the park and leave unless you are there to jog with the locals at dawn. Pay for the separate azalea garden when it is flowering — azalea and plum are the city flowers and the collection is genuinely good.
Free old town
A small town of one cross street and one straight street at the northern edge of Xihui Park, built on its clan temples — more than a hundred ancestral halls and private gardens side by side, which is rare anywhere in China. The mood is the lazy one of Suzhou's Pingjiang Road, and it is the right place to sit in the sun. Go for the tofu pudding and the soup dumplings on the snack street.
Tip It was only beginning to be developed when the guide was written, and visitors could be counted on ten fingers. Go now, eat on the snack street, and buy clay figurines here rather than in the city souvenir shops.
Water garden
The garden said to be where Fan Li retired with Xi Shi, and whether or not you believe that, the water garden itself is real: four zones of rockery, a spring causeway, a long corridor and layered reflections, with the Fan Li 'Fish-Breeding Classic' stele standing in one of them. Water on three sides, a lake-stone grotto at the entrance, and the old fishing village's lotus boat.
Tip Enter, turn left over the stone bridge to the square pavilion for the rockery, then follow the causeway — the long corridor and the layered-water zone at the far end are the two best parts. Summer is when the lotus works.
Plum blossom
The Rong family's private garden on the south slope of Dong Shan and Hu Shan in the western suburbs, planted with plum through and through — one of the famous plum-viewing gardens of Jiangnan. Old vines, ancient plum, new osmanthus and odd rocks give it its character, and the designer worked with the slope so the plum dresses the hill and the hill makes the plum feel secluded.
Tip February is the month. The viewing points climb step by step — Tianxin Terrace, Xixin Spring, Qingfen Pavilion, the Crane-Calling Pavilion — so you gain height as you go.
Scholars and politics
The academy behind the most famous couplet in Chinese scholarly life: 'the sound of wind and rain and reading, all enter the ear; the affairs of family, of state and of the world, all concern the heart'. The Donglin gentlemen are long gone, but the place still carries the argument they were making, and it sits oddly and beautifully among towers in the middle of the modern city.
Tip Half an hour is enough, and it pairs well with the Chong'an Temple shopping streets a few minutes away. It is the best single culture stop inside the city centre.
Old street, new night
White walls and grey tiles, houses built right against the canal with no path between them and the water — so you look from the bridge, then walk the pedestrian street behind. Every old house is now a bar or a restaurant; after dark the lanterns, the resident singers and the crowd make it feel like Shanghai's nightlife slipped into a canal town.
Tip Come at dusk and stay. The bars have live singers and it gets loud; the best view of the two banks is from the bridge rather than from inside.
Film sets
Two CCTV sets on the lakeshore at the foot of Junzhang Hill, built for 'Romance of the Three Kingdoms' and 'The Water Margin'. Three Kingdoms City is imposing and plain in the way the TV epic wanted, and more than ten key episodes were shot here; Water Margin City is Song-style architecture with real hills and real water, running east to west through the bandit lair, the county town and the capital.
Tip Check the performance board the moment you walk in and build the visit around it. The horseback shows with real riders and real weapons are the reason either place is worth a ticket.
The quieter peninsula
Where Dachu Hill pushes into the middle of Taihu like a dragon lying in the water. Less famous than Yuantouzhu, but it has one trick worth going for: stand at the head and the water on your left is flat as a pond while the water on your right is moving. Sights include the Dragon-Watching Pavilion, Ma Shan, Dragon Play Beach, Cloud-Stopping Cliff and the toad and horse-hoof rocks.
Tip Half a day, and a good half-day if you have already done Yuantouzhu and want the same lake without the crowds. Combine it with a Lingshan morning.
Food
The dish the city is judged on: tender ribs in a dark master-stock sauce, glossy, bone-soft, rich without being greasy. To anyone from outside Jiangnan it is sweeter than expected and the portion is small — which locals will tell you just leaves room for more dishes.
The filling is built by beating water into the mince a little at a time, so the meat holds its moisture and the dumpling floods when you bite it. Bigger than a Shanghai xiaolong, thicker-skinned and chewier, sweet-savoury rather than cloying. Order them by the liang — four to a liang, about ¥8 on the old-town snack street.
The seasonal version, when the crabs come in: the filling turns orange and faintly briny under the sweetness. Eat them with the pickled shepherd's purse on the side and a Yangshan peach after, if it is that time of year.
Whitebait is the lake's speciality — tiny, boneless, tender. Scrambled with egg is the home version; crispy-skinned is the restaurant one, where each fish is dragged through seasoned batter and slipped into moderately hot oil until the outside crackles.
The other two of Taihu's three whites. Whitefish is steamed or simmered and eaten for its texture; the shrimp are small, sweet and usually done plainly, sometimes simply blanched. Order them at a lakefront place around Yuantouzhu.
The hollow fried gluten ball the city uses everywhere: poached, braised, or stuffed with minced pork and stewed. In hotpot it soaks up the broth and stays springy. Oil gluten is one of the three things people list when asked what Wuxi tastes like.
Belly pork whose main seasoning is red fermented bean curd: red-bright, fatty without being cloying, tilted sweet. Different kitchens do it differently and the differences are the point — try it at an old restaurant rather than a chain.
Plain noodles tossed with scallion oil slow-cooked until it smells, and dried shrimp simmered soft. Thin silver-thread noodles, a clean broth and a lot of onion fragrance. Cheap, and the breakfast the city actually eats.
Where to eat
The old name for ribs
The famous old Wuxi house. The braised spareribs are the reason — dark red, heavy aroma, bone-soft — though at ¥15 a portion it is not cheap for the size. Tiger-skin chicken feet, smoked fish and plum-sauce chicken wings are the rest of the order. There is a takeaway window if you cannot sit down, and a queue either way.
Soup dumplings, done properly
The old downtown dumpling house visitors are sent to, and it earns it: big rooms of dark wood, ink landscapes, bamboo lanterns. The pork dumplings are plump, the filling tight and springy, sweet-savoury with real soup and a skin thicker and chewier than Shanghai's. Crab-roe dumplings in season; the three-delicacy wontons come dressed in a sweetened soy.
Where locals queue
The dumpling house that appears on the local-popularity list rather than the visitor list, which is usually the better recommendation. Same repertoire — pork, crab roe, wontons — at local prices, and the queue at peak hours is the whole review.
Old banquet kitchen
A long-established dining room and the house visitors name for fermented bean curd pork: belly red and bright, fatty but not cloying, tilted sweet. It is the sort of place to order several Wuxi classics at once and let the table decide.
Local noodles
A neighbourhood noodle house that comes up on local lists rather than tourist ones: scallion oil noodles, broth, wontons, the plain daily stuff done carefully. Exactly the right place for a cheap breakfast before a day at Xihui.
Home cooking
Home-style Wuxi cooking that locals recommend for one dish in particular: gluten balls stuffed with minced pork, stewed until the ball gives and the filling is soaked through. Small room, plain tables, the sort of menu that reads like someone's house.
Where to stay
Best base for walkers
The city's central shopping and eating tangle — Wang Xingji, Sanfengqiao, the Donglin Academy and the temple pedestrian streets are all within a few hundred metres, and the railway station is close. Everything from ¥150 business rooms to five-star towers exists here.
Budget, with bikes
A Republican-era villa turned hostel, convenient for the bus station and the Xihui scenic area, with direct buses to Yuantouzhu, the Second Spring, Nanchang Street, Huishan Old Town, Lingshan and the film sets. Twenty bikes for rent at ¥20 a day, and a group ride around Taihu most evenings.
Homely, by the Ferris wheel
A villa in a smart residential compound near the lakeside Ferris wheel, with buses from the door to every sight and shopping area. Small rooms individually done up, clean bedding, a kitchen you can use and a washing machine on the third-floor balcony — the family running it greet you coming and going, which people remember.
Closest to Lingshan
Right by the Lingshan scenic area, so it is the pick if you want to be at the Buddha for opening time. A full resort-style house with suites, family rooms and standards, dining and leisure on site, and a sauna that gets mentioned in reviews more than most hotel saunas deserve.
Shoppers and eaters
A tourist-class house in the busiest shopping block, next to the department stores and directly opposite Sanfengqiao, with Wang Xingji a short walk off. Nothing fancy, but the location means dinner, shopping and the bar street are all outside the door.
If you want the top end
Central, close to Xihui, Lihu and Taihu, with the Wanda plaza next door for shopping and food. Wide beds, proper duvets, a desk and fast internet — the business-grade option that also happens to be well placed for a sightseeing trip.
Getting around
Sunan Shuofang International (WUX) sits about 20 km south-east of the centre, with routes to Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Kunming, Chengdu, Xiamen, Wuhan, Chongqing, Hong Kong, Macau, Bangkok and Taipei. The airport bus shuttles to and from the railway station roughly 24 times a day for ¥5, taking under 40 minutes; a taxi into town runs ¥40–50.
Wuxi sits on both the Beijing–Shanghai high-speed line and the Shanghai–Nanjing intercity line, so Shanghai is about an hour away and Suzhou barely 20 minutes. There are four stations: Wuxi station (south square for classic trains, north square for high-speed, the two connected inside), Wuxi East on the Beijing–Shanghai line, Wuxi New District on the intercity line, and Huishan station in the western suburbs.
The long-distance station is a merger of the old city, west and Gaodunqiao stations, running around 407 routes across more than twenty provinces. Wuxi to Shanghai is the useful one: roughly 20 departures a day between 07:20 and 19:00, ¥49–54, about two hours.
Flat fare and no conductor: ¥1 on a standard bus, ¥2 air-conditioned, and almost every sight has a stop named after it. The tourist buses are the ones to know — K1 from the station's east square to Yuantouzhu's Chongshan gate for ¥2 in 30–40 minutes, and K87 which goes via Xihui Park to the Dushan gate.
Flagfall is ¥10 for the first 3 km with no fuel surcharge, then ¥1.90 per kilometre. Airport to downtown comes to about ¥40–50. Distances between the scattered sights are not short, so a taxi is genuinely useful for the Lingshan leg if you do not want the bus.
Public bikes are everywhere downtown and at the lakeside parks, but note that two companies run incompatible systems — check the mark on the frame before you try to return one. Locals get the first hour a day free; visitors rent by the hour for about ¥5 and can sign up at the Yuantouzhu gate, at the Liyuan car park, or at the holiday desks by the Lihu fountain and Bogong Island.
Shopping
Made from the black clay a metre below the Hui Shan slope, which is fine enough to roll without cracking and bend without breaking. Rough goods are the bright, simple lucky pieces — the Great Fortune baby, the god of longevity; fine goods are hand-pinched opera and legend figures. Buy them in the old town, where the workshops are.
The teapot that China invented, from Yixing south-west of Wuxi, with a history traced back some 2,400 years to Fan Li. The clay does not steal the tea's aroma and never gives a stewed taste; a pot used for years smells of tea even filled with plain boiling water. Hand-built by the slap-and-join method, and the real thing is never machine-made.
Nearly seventy years of cultivation at Yangshan, and the peaches are famous for a reason: good shape, bright colour, fine flesh, skin that peels away, juice that is thick and sweet, and an entry-level early variety on the stalls from late May.
A green tea from the city's outskirts and a recent name in Jiangsu's tea list. Infused, the white tips show and the liquor is clear green; the taste is fresh and mellow with a high, clean aroma. Cheap, and easy to pack.
Grown on Dafu Hill and Maji Hill outside the city for the better part of a thousand years — Jiangnan is where bayberry originates and the old name for it was the fine fruit of Wu and Yue. Thick flesh, small stone, a dozen-odd varieties, and locals steep it in liquor with a little brown sugar.
Nanchan Temple and Chong'an Temple sound like temples and are in fact the city's two busiest shopping and eating districts. Nanchan has more stalls and slightly lower prices, plus the Muguiying food hall; Chong'an has the underground mall, the department stores across the road, and the barbecue stalls that come out around 6pm.
Practical
Distances between sights are longer than the city looks on a map. Group your days by area — lake, Lingshan, old town — and you will lose far less time to buses.
| Best months | Late March–mid-April for the cherry blossom; September–October for lake fish, peaches and clear weather. January averages about 2.8°C, July about 28°C, and the rainy season is long and concentrated in summer. |
|---|---|
| Key tickets | Yuantouzhu ¥105 (¥170 combo); Lingshan ¥210 plus ¥25 shuttle; Liyuan ¥45 season / ¥30 off; Meiyuan ¥60; Xihui Park ¥10 / ¥70 combo; Three Kingdoms ¥90; Water Margin ¥85 (¥150 for both); Donglin Academy ¥16; Longtouzhu ¥25 |
| Free | Huishan Ancient Town, Nanchang Street, Nanchan and Chong'an temple streets, Qian Zhongshu's former home, Lihu Park, Changguangxi Wetland Park, Jinchengwan Park, Lihu Central Park |
| Cherry festival | Late March to mid-April in the Cherry Blossom Valley at Yuantouzhu — parades, stage shows, bridal fashion shows and a temporary post office selling festival postcards |
| Canal boats | About ¥30–40 a person booked online. Canal Park pier (under Jiangjian Bridge): 14:30, 19:00, 20:15, plus 10:00 at weekends. Wenjin pier behind the hotel opposite the station's south square: 14:45, 19:15, 20:30, plus 10:15 at weekends |
| Lingshan shows | Nine Dragons Bathing the Buddha at 10:00, 11:30, 14:45, 16:45; 'Song of Auspiciousness' in the Brahma Palace at 10:35, 11:30, 14:00 and 16:00, with an extra 13:00 at weekends |
| Getting around | Bus ¥1 / ¥2 air-conditioned; taxi ¥10 for 3 km then ¥1.90 per km; public bike about ¥5 an hour for visitors; airport bus ¥5 |
| Useful numbers | Tourism complaints 0510-85052599; tourism hotline 0510-12301; public bike 0510-85161059; coach station 0510-82588188; Yuantouzhu 0510-96889688; Lingshan 4001680303 |
Tips
Water and food inside the scenic areas are expensive — on the flat and on the mountain alike. Stock up at a supermarket before you go in, especially at Lingshan, where a plain bowl of noodles is ¥20 and a few vegetable dishes approach ¥300.
From either gate, go to the pier first and take the boat to Taihu Fairy Island, then work the southern section, then the north if you have time. Doing it in the wrong order costs you an hour of walking the same road twice.
You will climb hills and walk along lake rocks, so bring shoes you can actually walk in. Sunscreen is not optional even when it is not 35°C — the lake reflects and the humidity hides it.
There is almost nothing to buy around Wuxi East, and what exists is the station's own, priced accordingly. If you are waiting there for a train, bring food with you.
¥210 is a lot for one morning, and most of the arguments about Wuxi are arguments about this ticket. If Buddhist art leaves you cold, spend the day at Yuantouzhu and Huishan and do not feel you missed the city.
Nanchang Street and the Chong'an temple streets do dinner and a walk in one go, and the night view over the old canal is the best free thing in the city. Bars have resident singers and it gets loud after nine — that is the point of going.
Background
Wuxi is mostly plain, with low hills and residual mounds scattered across it: a water-net plain in the south, a sandy plain in the north, polders cut out of marsh in the middle and higher ground in the south-west, where Yixing's low mountains and hills begin. The climate is northern subtropical and humid, monsoon-driven, with four distinct seasons, mild temperatures, plenty of rain, long sun and a long frost-free period. January averages around 2.8°C and July around 28°C.
Rain falls heavily in a long summer season, and the usual hazards are typhoons, storms, sustained wet spells, drought, cold snaps, hail and high wind. Between the mass of Taihu's water and the broken terrain of the southern hills, local microclimates vary enough that both northern and southern crops grow here — which is why the city historically fed itself so well.
Wuxi has more than 3,000 years of history and is a designated national historical and cultural city. It was already an economic and cultural centre in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, and it produced writers and scholars in quantity; the physical evidence of that is still standing all over the city.
The founding story is the good one: around 3,000 years ago the Zhou princes Taibo and Zhongyong, rather than fight over the succession, fled east and settled here — at today's Meicun, though some accounts place them in modern Suzhou. The place prospered. Taibo died without sons, so the Zhou king enfeoffed his descendants as kings of Wu, the state known as Gouwu, which by the Spring and Autumn period was among the strongest of the feudal states. Descendants of Sunzi still live in Sun Lane near what is now Liziyuan.
Under the Ming and Qing, good natural conditions, water and road transport and relative stability made the place productive; the reclamation of Furong Lake north-west of the city created large tracts of good farmland, and careful cultivation pushed yields up year on year — spring beans, summer wheat, autumn rice, around three shi a mu in an average year — making it one of the empire's granaries.
Huishan clay figurines are the local craft, old enough to be national intangible heritage, made from clay taken a metre below the hillside and worked through many steps. They divide into rough goods — bright, simple, auspicious subjects like the Great Fortune baby and the longevity god, expressing wishes for luck, protection and full larders — and fine goods, hand-pinched figures drawn from opera and myth, vivid and more delicately coloured. The signature piece is the Great Fortune baby, a deified image of a sturdy child believed to suppress evil and bring blessing.
Wuxi opera, or 'Wuxi tanhuang', spread through southern Jiangsu and after 1949 out into the Yangtze delta; in the Republican period it was called the new opera and only took the name Wuxi opera after the 1954 East China opera festival. Its core tune is the huangdiao, later expanded with new melodies and tempos and a large amount of borrowed Jiangnan folk music. Yixing's hand-built purple-clay pottery is the other craft with real weight: a unique slap-and-join technique that exists nowhere else.
Two festivals matter if you can catch them. The Taibo temple fair at Meicun in Xishan district, running from the ninth to the fifteenth of the first lunar month, began as an ancestral sacrifice and grew into a fair of ritual, spring outings, market and entertainment, traceable some 3,200 years. And from 1991 Jiangyin has held the Xu Xiake tourism and culture festival in late March, in honour of the man born there who walked most of China and wrote it down.
Travel with them
Directed by Wang Fulin, Cai Xiaoqing, Zhang Shaolin and others
Eighty-four episodes, an investment of 170 million yuan, and much of it shot at the Wuxi film base you can still visit — Three Kingdoms City. It covers nearly a century of contending factions from the late Han to the Jin, and it is still the version Chinese viewers measure every other Three Kingdoms adaptation against. Watch a couple of episodes before you go and the sets make sense.
Abing (Hua Yanjun)
The erhu piece everybody knows, written by a blind street musician from Wuxi and named for Hui Shan Spring — the water in the Xihui hills that is still ranked the second spring under heaven. Go and look at the spring, then listen again.
Wuxi folk song
The song that turned the lake into a slogan — 'Taihu is beautiful, beautiful in the water of Taihu'. It is played everywhere in the city, including on boats, and it does capture the particular softness of this lake at dawn.
Xu Xiake (1587–1641)
The man was born in Jiangyin, an hour north of the city, and spent thirty years walking and recording — caves, ranges, sources, inns, weather. His former home is still standing and open. A few pages of it will make you want to go walking, which is the correct reaction.
The questions visitors ask us most about Wuxi, answered plainly.
Prices and practical details are reviewed every month by our Beijing team and updated the day a rule changes.
Three is the honest answer. One for Yuantouzhu and Taihu, one for Lingshan and the canal at night, one for Xihui Park, Huishan Old Town and the old shopping streets. Two days works if you cut Lingshan; four lets you add Yixing or Jiangyin.
Only if big religious spectacle is your thing. The Buddha, the Brahma Palace and the Nine Dragons fountain are impressive, but it is a full morning plus a long bus ride for the most expensive ticket in the city. Travellers who are lukewarm on Buddhist art usually wish they had spent the day at Yuantouzhu and Huishan instead.
Late March to mid-April, with the cherry festival running in the valley above the lake through that window. Peak bloom shifts with the weather, so check the park's notice before booking, and arrive early — the valley boardwalks jam up by mid-morning.
Plenty: Huishan Ancient Town, Nanchang Street on the canal, the Nanchan and Chong'an temple shopping streets, Qian Zhongshu's former home, and four lakeside parks — Lihu Park, Changguangxi Wetland Park, Jinchengwan Park and Lihu Central Park. Lihu Park is the best of the free ones, and it is not the same place as Liyuan.
By train, and it could hardly be easier — about 20 minutes from Suzhou and roughly an hour from Shanghai, dozens of services a day on the Shanghai–Nanjing intercity and Beijing–Shanghai high-speed lines. Coaches from Shanghai run about 20 times daily for ¥49–54 and take around two hours. Flying into Sunan Shuofang (WUX) also works; the airport bus to the station is ¥5.
Wuxi station if you can — the south square handles classic trains and the north square the high-speed ones, and it is central. Wuxi East is on the Beijing–Shanghai line but sits far out, a good hour into town by bus, with almost no shops and expensive snacks. Wuxi New District station serves the intercity line and is only 3 km from the airport.
Start with Wuxi spareribs — dark, glossy, falling off the bone and sweeter than most visitors expect. Then soup dumplings at Wang Xingji, crab-roe dumplings when they are in season, Taihu's three whites, gluten balls stuffed with pork, and a bowl of scallion-oil noodles for breakfast. Buy Yangshan peaches from late May.
Yes — 20 minutes apart by train, and Wuxi is the cheaper place to sleep. Suzhou has the famous gardens, but Xihui's Jichang Garden and Huishan Old Town give you the same classical material with a fraction of the crowd, and you get Taihu on top of it.
Plan this trip
The same places, with a driver, an English-speaking guide and the tickets already bought.
City guides
Dalian
City guide · 15 tours
The Northern Pearl — China's most romantic coastal city.
Shenyang
City guide · 12 tours
Where the Qing dynasty began — an imperial palace, a warlord's mansion and the cheapest good food in the northeast.
Changbai Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
A volcano on the North Korean border, a jade-green crater lake at 2,189 m, and hot springs on the way down.
Kunming
City guide · 12 tours
China's Spring City — a mild plateau capital of flowers, markets and the Stone Forest, with gulls on the lake in winter.
Dali
City guide · 12 tours
A walled Bai town between a 4,000 m mountain and a great lake — wind, flowers, snow and moon, and life at a slower speed.
Shuhe
City guide · 12 tours
The quiet version of Lijiang — a Tea Horse Road village of canals, stone bridges and slow afternoons, 4 km from the crowds.
Lijiang
City guide · 12 tours
A UNESCO Naxi old town of canals and cobbles beneath a 5,596 m snow mountain — the cultural heart of north-west Yunnan.
Xiamen
City guide · 12 tours
A subtropical island city of temples, fishing-village lanes and the best street food in Fujian — with the car-free islet of Gulangyu a 20-minute ferry away.
Gulangyu
City guide · 12 tours
A car-free island of colonial villas, pianos and cats, twenty minutes off Xiamen — and the one place where the trick is simply to stay the night.
Fuzhou
City guide · 12 tours
A 2,200-year-old capital of banyan trees and mountains-within-the-city, where the Ming lanes of Sanfang Qixiang meet the dockyard that built China's modern navy.
Lugu Lake
City guide · 12 tours
A 2,680 m lake on the Yunnan–Sichuan border, home to China's last matrilineal people, pig-trough canoes and a great deal of doing nothing.
Xishuangbanna
City guide · 12 tours
China's tropical south — rainforest, wild elephants, Dai villages and the Mekong, wrapped around the gateway city of Jinghong.
Shangri-La
City guide · 12 tours
A Tibetan town at 3,300 m in Yunnan's Diqing prefecture — monasteries, grassland, prayer wheels and cold thin air.
Nanchang
City guide · 12 tours
Jiangxi's 'hero city' on the Gan River — one great Tang pavilion, a 160-metre Ferris wheel, and the best claypot soup you will eat in China.
Hefei
City guide · 12 tours
Anhui's 2,000-year-old capital: the hometown of China's model judge, a moat-turned-garden ring, and the fast rail gateway to Huangshan.
Hongcun
City guide · 12 tours
A 900-year-old Hui village laid out as an ox, with water running to every door and a mirror-still crescent pond at its heart.
Wuhan
City guide · 12 tours
Three towns, two rivers and the best breakfast in China — a huge, blunt river city of bridges, lakes and cheap, brilliant street food.
Changsha
City guide · 12 tours
Hunan's loud, young capital: a 3,000-year-old city that eats chilli-hot food, stays up all night and treats foot massage as a civic duty.
Fenghuang Ancient Town
City guide · 12 tours
The stilt-house river town of Shen Congwen's 'Border Town' — glowing lanterns, stepping stones and the best two nights in western Hunan.
Lushan
City guide · 12 tours
A cloud-wrapped granite mountain with a Victorian hill station on top, waterfalls in three tiers, and the mist that Su Shi said you could never see through.
Wuyuan
City guide · 12 tours
China's 'most beautiful countryside' — dozens of white-walled Huizhou villages strung along streams and terraced into the hills, and two weeks a year of gold.
Mount Heng (Hengshan, Hunan)
City guide · 12 tours
The South Great Peak: a pilgrimage mountain of 72 summits where the temples run all the way to the top, and the sunrise over the cloud sea is the whole point.
Huangshan
City guide · 12 tours
Yellow Mountain: 82 granite peaks of twisted pines and grotesque rock, a sea of cloud that changes by the hour, and hot springs at the foot.
Wudang Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
The Taoist first mountain of China — a gilded bronze hall on a 1,612 m summit, temples hung off cliff faces, and the birthplace of tai chi.
Luoyang
City guide · 12 tours
Thirteen dynasties, 100,000 Buddhas carved into a river cliff, China's first Buddhist temple — and a whole city that turns peony-pink every April.
Yuntai Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
A UNESCO geopark in Henan where red-stone gorges squeeze a river to a slot, a 314 m waterfall drops in one plunge, and every path leads to another pool.
Rizhao
City guide · 12 tours
A low-key Shandong beach town where the sun rises straight out of the Yellow Sea, the sand runs 60 km and a seafood dinner costs less than a coffee in Shanghai.
Yantai
City guide · 12 tours
A northern Shandong port of fairy-tale cliffs, wine cellars and long golden beaches — where emperors once hunted the elixir of life and China's wine industry still begins.
Lianyungang
City guide · 12 tours
A working Jiangsu port with a myth in the middle of it — the Flower-Fruit Mountain of Journey to the West, a sea causeway to a big island beach, and some of the cheapest seafood on the coast.
Sanqing Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
A vertical forest of granite pillars in Jiangxi — the Python Out of the Mountain, the Goddess of the East Sea, two cable cars and a cliff-hugging walkway at 1,660 metres.
Tianjin
City guide · 12 tours
Beijing's port city next door — a river of 24 bridges, 2,000 colonial villas, and the best street breakfast in northern China.
Datong
City guide · 12 tours
A frontier capital of carved Buddhas — the Yungang Grottoes, a temple pinned to a cliff, and the oldest wooden tower in China.
Taiyuan
City guide · 12 tours
Shanxi's provincial capital and noodle heartland — the spring of Jinci, two Ming pagodas, and a museum that explains the whole province.
Pingyao
City guide · 12 tours
China's best-preserved ancient walled town — a Ming wall, the first Chinese bank, and two temples of painted clay just outside the gates.
Wutai Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
China's foremost Buddhist mountain — fifty-plus temples in one valley, crowned by five flat-topped peaks up to 3,058 m.
Hulunbuir
City guide · 12 tours
China's finest grassland — a 263,000 km² sweep of steppe, birch forest and border river, best driven with the windows down.
The Forbidden City
City guide · 12 tours
Beijing's 600-year imperial palace — 8,700 rooms behind a 72-hectare wall, and the largest surviving wooden palace complex on earth.
Sanya
City guide · 12 tours
China's only true winter-sun coast — four very different bays, a coral island and a 108 m sea Buddha, all at 18° north.
Haikou
City guide · 12 tours
Hainan's capital is the island's living city — 600-year-old arcade streets, a volcanic village, and a morning-tea-to-midnight food culture.
Beihai
City guide · 12 tours
24 km of fine white sand on one side, a volcanic island of coral and lava on the other — plus a 19th-century arcade old street in between.
Nanning
City guide · 12 tours
Guangxi's green capital is a gateway to Detian Falls, Beihai and Vietnam — and a genuinely excellent food city if you let it slow you down.
Guangxi
City guide · 12 tours
One autonomous region, a dozen landscapes — limestone peaks and rice terraces in the north, a Vietnam border and a warm gulf coast in the south.
Huizhou
City guide · 12 tours
A free West Lake, a Taoist mountain and 200 km of white-sand coast — the Pearl River Delta's most underrated weekend.
Beidaihe
City guide · 12 tours
Northern China's classic beach escape — one sunrise headland, 10 km of calm swimming water, and a bird flyway overhead twice a year.
Shanhaiguan
City guide · 12 tours
The town where the Great Wall stops being a rumour of mountains and walks into the Bohai Sea.
Baiyangdian
City guide · 12 tours
The biggest freshwater lake on the North China Plain — and almost none of it can be reached except by boat.
Qinhuangdao
City guide · 12 tours
126 km of Bohai coast in one municipality — a working port, two famous resorts, and the only desert dunes that meet this sea.
Yesanpo
City guide · 12 tours
Gorge country where the Taihang and Yan ranges collide — 52.5 km of canyon walls, a cave that spits fish, and a river to fall off.
Zhuhai
City guide · 12 tours
The delta's slow city: a 28 km promenade, 146 islands, oysters fattened where the river meets the sea.
Wuyi Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
Nine bends of clear water, red sandstone cliffs, and the tea that made a mountain's name.
Jiuzhaigou
City guide · 12 tours
108 mineral-blue lakes in one 55 km valley — the place that ruins water everywhere else for you.
Mount Siguniang
City guide · 12 tours
Four snow peaks, three valleys, and the friendliest 5,000 m mountain in China to stand on top of.
Hailuogou
City guide · 12 tours
A glacier that comes down to 2,850 m, hot springs in the forest, and Gongga Shan filling the sky above both.
Daocheng Yading
City guide · 12 tours
Three 6,000 m sacred peaks, glacial lakes at 4,600 m and twenty hours of road — the hardest, highest payoff in Sichuan.
Shunan Bamboo Sea
City guide · 12 tours
Seventy thousand mu of bamboo over twenty-eight hills, a red sandstone corridor under a closed green roof, and a banquet made entirely of bamboo.
Dujiangyan
City guide · 12 tours
Not a monument but a machine: three pieces of engineering with no dam, still doing their job after 2,270 years.
Qingcheng Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
The mountain where Daoism was organised, and the one Chengdu escapes to when the basin turns into an oven.
Qingdao
City guide · 12 tours
Red-tiled roofs, cold beer and a granite mountain that walks straight into the sea — the easiest good time on the Yellow Sea.
Mount Tai
City guide · 12 tours
1,545 metres, 6,290 stone steps and three thousand years of emperors — the one mountain in China that is also a document.
Jinan
City guide · 12 tours
A provincial capital with 700 springs under the pavement — people still queue at the spouts to fill their kettles.
Weihai
City guide · 12 tours
1,000 km of clean coast, a free bathing beach, the island where the Beiyang Fleet died — and thousands of wild swans every winter.
Qufu
City guide · 12 tours
One family, two thousand years of steles, and a ¥150 pass that covers the lot — the easiest serious day trip in Shandong.
Penglai
City guide · 12 tours
China's immortals' coast — a Song-dynasty naval harbour you can walk for free, a mythology nobody ever found, and the ferry to 32 islands.
Changdao
City guide · 12 tours
32 islands, one causeway, a ¥150 land pass, tens of thousands of gulls and nowhere you can drive — the place where everything happens by boat.
Nanjing
City guide · 12 tours
Capital of six dynasties, capital of the Republic, and the city that eats more duck than anywhere else on earth.
Suzhou
City guide · 12 tours
Two thousand five hundred years of canals, sixty surviving gardens, and a city that shuts its gates at half past five.
Zhouzhuang
City guide · 12 tours
Nine hundred years, fourteen bridges, one ticket — and a town that only makes sense before eight in the morning.
Tongli
City guide · 12 tours
Fifteen canals, seven islets, forty-nine bridges — and a town that still gets up at dawn because it lives here.
Yangzhou
City guide · 12 tours
A city built by salt merchants who had more money than restraint — gardens, a narrow lake, and the best breakfast in China.
Zhenjiang
City guide · 12 tours
Three hills, one ferry landing, and an unreasonable share of Chinese literature — the Yangtze city people drive past.
Changzhou
City guide · 12 tours
A 2,500-year-old canal city that built a dinosaur park and refuses to apologise for it.
Wuzhen
City guide · 12 tours
A town that is two towns: the older, quieter East Zone and the lit-up West Zone you sleep inside.
Xitang
City guide · 12 tours
Nine canals, 122 lanes, one long roofed corridor — and a town that still works for a living.
Hangzhou
City guide · 12 tours
A lake in the middle of a city, a tea village in the hills, and two thousand years of getting the mood right.
Xixi Wetland
City guide · 12 tours
Ten square kilometres of marsh inside Hangzhou, and the only way into half of it is a boat.
Ningbo
City guide · 12 tours
A 7,000-year-old port with Asia's oldest private library, a free waterfront 20 years older than Shanghai's, and the best seafood before the islands.
Mount Putuo
City guide · 12 tours
A Buddhist island with no cars, three great temples and a ¥10 lunch that is the point of the place.
Qiandao Lake
City guide · 12 tours
A thousand islands that did not exist sixty years ago, and the cleanest big-lake water in China.
Shaoxing
City guide · 12 tours
Two and a half thousand years of water-town China, and Lu Xun's house is free.
Zhoushan
City guide · 12 tours
1,390 islands, one road bridge in, and a harbour that lands more fish than almost anywhere on earth.
Hengdian
City guide · 12 tours
A backlot the size of a town, where the palaces are copies and the film crews are real.
Yandang Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
A volcano that weathering turned into scenery — 500-odd sights of peak, cave and waterfall across eight scenic areas.
Zhejiang
City guide · 12 tours
One small, mountainous, absurdly rich province that holds a lake, two canal towns, a Buddhist island and a dead volcano.
Hong Kong Outlying Islands
City guide · 12 tours
Two hundred-odd islands, half an hour of ferry from the financial district, and not a car on three of them.
Hong Kong Shopping
City guide · 12 tours
A duty-free port where the tag starts lower, two citywide sale seasons knock a third off, and every mall sits on an MTR exit.
Macao
City guide · 12 tours
Four hundred years of Portuguese streets, a fake Venice under a painted sky, and the best egg tart in Asia.
Urumqi
City guide · 12 tours
The city furthest from the sea, with a snow range on its doorstep and dinner starting at nine.
Hong Kong SAR, China
City guide · 11 tours
A harbour skyline you already know by heart, dim sum trolleys at dawn, and 260 islands an hour from the neon.
Taiwan, China
City guide · 11 tours
Night-market alleys, high-mountain railways, and a coastline that changes character every hundred kilometres.
Qinghai Lake
City guide · 12 tours
A 4,400 sq km inland sea at 3,200 m, ringed by rapeseed gold, prayer flags and the best cycling road in China.
Mount Emei
City guide · 11 tours
A 3,099-metre Buddhist summit you can reach by cable car before lunch — and a mountain full of monkeys that will absolutely rob you.
Beijing
City guide · 11 tours
Six centuries of imperial red walls, a Great Wall you can climb before lunch, and the best roast duck on earth.
Taipei
City guide · 11 tours
A 24-hour bookstore, a night market that never stops sizzling, and a city that apologises when you bump into it.
North Xinjiang
City guide · 11 tours
Alpine lakes the colour of poured enamel, a village of log cabins under birch trees, and the last tear the Atlantic ever sheds.
Lanzhou
City guide · 11 tours
A city split in half by the Yellow River, where beef noodles are a breakfast ritual and the Silk Road still runs through the streets.
Mount Hua
City guide · 11 tours
Five granite peaks, one plank road bolted to a cliff face, and a sunrise that justifies the 2am start.
Dunhuang
City guide · 11 tours
A desert oasis where Buddhist cave art survived a thousand years and a crescent lake refused to dry up.
Gannan
City guide · 11 tours
433 kilometres of the Yellow River's first bend, a 3.5 km prayer-wheel circuit, and Tibetan grasslands almost nobody has commercialised yet.
Sichuan–Tibet Highway
City guide · 11 tours
2,142 kilometres of cliff-edge switchbacks, four of China's most beautiful mountains, and a road the Tibetans walk on their knees.
Kangding
City guide · 11 tours
The town that gave Asia its most famous love song, a 7,556m sacred peak on its doorstep, and the last real Tibetan town before the road climbs to Lhasa.
Lhasa
City guide · 12 tours
A city of prayer wheels and butter lamps at 3,700 metres, where the sun shines 3,000 hours a year and the world's highest palace watches over it all.
Nyingchi
City guide · 11 tours
Tibet's greenest corner — peach blossom valleys, a 7,782 m peak that hides from almost everyone, and the world's deepest canyon.
Namtso
City guide · 11 tours
A 1,920-square-kilometre sheet of impossible blue at 4,718 metres, ringed by snow peaks and prayer flags.
Chongqing
City guide · 12 tours
A vertical city of fog, cable cars and cliff-side stilt houses, where the火锅 never stops boiling and the night skyline outshines Hong Kong.
Qiandongnan
City guide · 11 tours
A thousand Miao households stacked up a mountainside, drum towers and wind-rain bridges in Dong villages, and a 600-year-old Ming garrison town on the road to Guiyang.
Libo
City guide · 11 tours
Emerald rivers threading through karst peaks, a 600-metre forest growing out of a riverbed, and China's largest wild plum grove.
Guiyang
City guide · 11 tours
China's summer capital at 1,100 metres, where the nights run on sour fish soup, street-side barbecue and mahjong that never quite stops.
Zhenyuan
City guide · 11 tours
A 2,000-year-old river town where the Wuyang River carves an S through the mountains and every lane hides a story.
Huangguoshu
City guide · 11 tours
Asia's biggest waterfall, and the only one on earth you can walk behind, above and around — plus 600-year-old Ming dynasty villages a short drive away.
Harbin
City guide · 11 tours
Minus 30 degrees, a frozen river you can walk across, and a cathedral built by Russians who never went home.
Yunnan
City guide · 11 tours
Snow mountains, tropical rainforest, twenty-five minorities and a plate of rice noodles — all in one province.
Shanghai
City guide · 11 tours
A 1920s waterfront of colonial banks facing a science-fiction skyline, soup dumplings you eat with a straw, and 20 million people moving like clockwork.
Zhangjiajie
City guide · 11 tours
Three thousand sandstone pillars straight out of Avatar, a glass skywalk bolted to a cliff, and a cable car that leaves from downtown.
Guangzhou
City guide · 11 tours
A 2,200-year-old trading port where dim sum is a religion, colonial islands sit beside 600-metre towers, and the food never stops.
Guilin
City guide · 11 tours
Karst peaks rising straight out of a green river, rice terraces carved into mountainsides, and the best bowl of noodles you'll eat in China.
Shenzhen
City guide · 11 tours
A fishing village that became a megacity in forty years — and it still has 500-year-old banyans, empty beaches and dim sum worth the border crossing.
Chengdu
City guide · 11 tours
A 3,000-year-old city where the schedule is tea, mahjong and hotpot — and the pandas are just the opening act.
Xinjiang
City guide · 11 tours
Snow peaks, grassland, desert and oasis — one-sixth of China, and the longest road you will ever ride.
Xi'an
City guide · 14 tours
Thirteen dynasties of emperors, a terracotta army buried for 2,200 years, and a walled city you can cycle in 100 minutes.
Qinghai
City guide · 11 tours
China's high-altitude blue heart: a salt lake you can walk on, a 3,200-metre sea, and yak butter tea at the roof of the world.
Tibet
City guide · 11 tours
A plateau the size of Western Europe where the sky starts at your feet, prayer flags carry the wind, and the roads run past 8,000-metre peaks.
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