Schedule:
Day 1: Start in Suzhou - Suzhou Museum of Opera and Theater - Pingjiang Historical and Cultural District (Su Opera) - Humble Administrator's Garden
Day 2: Tiger Hill Scenic Spot - Canglang Pavilion "Six Records of a Floating Life" - True Color Museum - Return
Suzhou Museum of Opera and Theater
The Suzhou Museum of Opera and Theater is located in Zhangjia Lane in the Suzhou Ancient City and is in the Quanjin Club House, a key cultural relic site under state protection. You can experience the beauty of Kunqu up close. The museum has a large collection of Kunqu scripts, transcripts of hundreds of Kunqu artists, and costumes used in Kunqu, as well as other exhibits. The ancient theater stage inside the museum is one of the most exquisite in the surviving classical theater buildings in Suzhou, and also has distinctive architectural and acoustic design features.
Pingjiang Historical and Cultural District (Su Opera)
Situated in the northeast corner of the Suzhou Ancient City, the Pingjiang Historical and Cultural District is the best preserved and largest historic district in Suzhou to date, and is a microcosm of the Suzhou Ancient City. The district still retains the double-chessboard layout of criss-cross water and roads, and rivers flowing along streets, presenting a unique scenery of small bridges and flowing water, white walls and dark blue tiles. The Zhongzhangjia Alley here has become a street of opera in Suzhou. Su opera, Su-style burlesque, Wu song and other opera-related museums are also built here successively.
Humble Administrator's Garden
The art of classical Chinese gardens is an important heritage of human civilization. The Humble Administrator's Garden, as a world heritage, is a representative of Chinese gardens that integrates the artistic concept of landscape and demonstrates the art of gardening and profound insight of oriental civilization. When you visit the Humble Administrator's Garden at night, you can trace back the elegant garden life of the ancients and appreciate the Suzhou style in the garden.
Tiger Hill Scenic Spot
The Tiger Hill is half of the history of Suzhou. The Tiger Hill is known as "the most famous scenic spot in Wuzhong District" and is home to the architectural wonder Yunyan Pagoda, which is known as the "Leaning Tower of China" and has been leaning for a thousand years.
Six Records of a Floating Life at Canglang Pavilion
As the first immersive opera performance in China, the garden version of Six Records of a Floating Life is an innovative combination of Canglang Pavilion, a world heritage, and Kunqu, an intangible cultural heritage, presenting a full picture of Su-style life in one opera. The entire garden of the Canglang Pavilion is transformed into a stage for Kunqu performance. The space is arranged in a criss-cross pattern, and the audience and performers are close to each other to completely replicate the performance of Kunqu in a private house in ancient times. It's like traveling back 200 years to the Qing Dynasty to witness the beautiful love of the affectionate couple.
True Color Museum
The True Color Museum in Suzhou is an art space of oriental aesthetics and a spiritual shrine. The oriental aesthetics blends naturally in every aspect of the museum. Millions of old bricks in the Suzhou Ancient City make the museum restrained yet exciting. From the theater to the art exhibition hall to the space of life aesthetics, people and nature, nature and architecture, architecture and people, all of them reflect the philosophical spirit of following nature's course, and non-self and no form. The True Color Museum, as the city’s living room, is a recluse in the city, an art space that can live, grow and inspire.
