Overview
Three cities, four days, and the fastest trains in the world connecting them.
Shanghai opens the trip with the Bund and the old city. From there it is 25 minutes by high-speed rail to Suzhou, the Venice of the East, where the classical gardens — the Humble Administrator's Garden above all — compress mountains, water and pavilions into a walled acre. Suzhou also gives you a silk workshop and a canal-side quarter that has changed little in a century.
Hangzhou closes it, an hour away, with the West Lake: causeways, pagodas, tea fields climbing the hills behind, and the Lingyin Temple grottoes. Marco Polo called it the finest city in the world, and the lake still has the power to make that sound reasonable.
All intercity travel is by high-speed train in second-class reserved seats, with your guide travelling alongside you and handling luggage.
- The Bund and Yu Garden in Shanghai with a dusk river crossing
- Humble Administrator's Garden, the finest of Suzhou's classical gardens
- Canal boat ride through Suzhou's old water town quarter
- Silk spinning and embroidery demonstration at a Suzhou workshop
- Boat crossing of Hangzhou's West Lake to the Little Yingzhou island
- Lingyin Temple grottoes and Longjing tea village in the hills
- All intercity travel by high-speed rail with reserved seats
Itinerary
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1 Arrival in Shanghai & the Bund
No meals Shanghai, 4-star hotelAfternoon: Your guide meets you at Pudong (PVG) or Hongqiao (SHA) airport and transfers you to the hotel. If you arrive before 15:00 there is time for an orientation walk along Nanjing Road, the pedestrianised shopping street that runs from the old city to the Bund.
Evening: Free to rest or explore. Your guide recommends a riverside restaurant and will reserve a table on request — the Huangpu at night is worth sitting in front of.
Practical note: Please send your flight details at least 72 hours ahead so we can confirm the high-speed rail tickets for days two and four.
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2 Shanghai Old City, then Rail to Suzhou
Breakfast, Lunch Suzhou, 4-star hotel08:30 - Yu Garden: A Ming-dynasty garden of pavilions, ponds and rockeries in the heart of the old city. We arrive early to have the courtyards to ourselves, then walk through the adjacent bazaar and the Huxinting teahouse for xiaolongbao.
11:00 - The Bund: The riverfront row of colonial-era banks, customs house and hotels, with the Pudong towers opposite. Your guide explains how a mudflat settlement became the financial capital of Asia in eighty years.
12:30 - Lunch: Benbang cuisine near the Bund.
14:00 - High-speed rail: A 25-minute run to Suzhou at speeds up to 350 km/h. Your guide travels with you and handles the luggage.
15:00 - Pingjiang Road: A canal-side street of whitewashed houses, stone bridges and willow trees that follows an 800-year-old waterway. We walk it slowly, stopping at a tea house with a balcony over the water.
Evening: Dinner on your own along the canal; the local speciality is squirrel-shaped mandarin fish, sweet and sour and dramatically plated.
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3 Suzhou Gardens & Silk, then Rail to Hangzhou
Breakfast, Lunch Hangzhou, 4-star hotel08:30 - Humble Administrator's Garden: The largest and most celebrated of Suzhou's classical gardens, first laid out in 1509. Water covers half the 5.2 hectares, and the pavilions, bridges and rock islands are arranged so that each turn reveals a new composition — the principle of borrowed scenery, where distant pagodas are framed as if they belonged to the garden.
10:30 - Suzhou Museum: I.M. Pei's last building, a modernist composition of white walls, grey granite and a water garden that manages to feel both contemporary and entirely Suzhou.
12:00 - Silk workshop: A demonstration of silk spinning from cocoon to thread, followed by the embroidery rooms where a single double-sided panel can take an artisan months. There is a showroom, but no pressure to buy.
13:30 - Lunch: Suzhou-style noodles with a variety of toppings — the local way to eat at midday.
15:00 - High-speed rail: Around 90 minutes south to Hangzhou.
17:00 - West Lake walk: We begin at Broken Bridge and follow the Bai Causeway as the light goes, with the pagodas on the hills catching the last of it.
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4 West Lake, Lingyin Temple & Departure
Breakfast Not included08:30 - Boat on the lake: We board a traditional wooden boat and cross to Little Yingzhou island, one of the Three Pools Mirroring the Moon, then continue to the Mid-Lake Pavilion. From the water, the causeways, willows and distant pagodas arrange themselves exactly as a thousand paintings promised.
10:30 - Lingyin Temple: A monastery founded in 328 AD, set against a limestone cliff carved with more than 300 Buddhist figures from the Five Dynasties and Song periods. The Feilai Feng grottoes beside it are the finest surviving example of Song dynasty stone carving in the region.
12:00 - Longjing tea village: In the hills west of the lake, where Dragon Well tea has been grown for over a thousand years. We visit a family's tea house, watch the leaves hand-fired in woks, and taste the spring picking.
13:30 - Lunch: A village restaurant using tea leaves in the cooking — Longjing shrimp is the signature.
15:00 - Departure: Transfer to Hangzhou railway station for the high-speed train to Shanghai (around one hour), or directly to Hangzhou Xiaoshan airport. Your guide sees you through check-in and confirms any onward connection.
Gallery
What's included
- 3 nights at 4-star hotels (Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou)
- Daily breakfast plus 2 lunches
- English-speaking guide throughout, including on trains
- High-speed rail tickets Shanghai-Suzhou-Hangzhou (second class, reserved)
- Private transfers and local transport in each city
- All entrance fees listed (Yu Garden, Humble Administrator's Garden, Lingyin Temple, boat rides)
- Suzhou silk workshop visit and canal boat ride
- West Lake boat crossing
- Station and airport transfers at the start and end
Not included
- Flights and trains to and from Shanghai
- Most dinners
- Travel insurance and visa fees
- Tips for guide and driver
- Personal expenses and hotel incidentals
- Optional Impression West Lake evening show
