Yuyuan Garden, maybe the most celebrated classical Chinese garden in Shanghai, is located in the northeast of the old town with an area of fives acres. In 1559, a Ming official named Pan Yunduan launched the construction of this private garden for his fathers pleasure. The construction lasted for 19 years. Later, due to the decline of the Pan family, the garden gradually fell into oblivion. Furthermore, several civil conflicts in the mid-19th century caused great damage to it. After several large-scale re-constructions since 1949, Yuyuan was finally opened to the public in 1961. The garden each year attracts countless visitors at home and abroad.

Built in a style that Suzhou gardens often take, Yuyuan garden is characterized by exquisite layout, beautiful scenery and the artistic architecture. Each pavilion, hall, stone and stream in the garden can express the quintessence of South China landscape design from Ming and Qing dynasties.

The bounding wall in the garden, decorated with dragons heads and paved by scale-like tiles on top, looks like a huge wandering dragon. People named it Five-dragon Wall. More interesting is that each dragon in this wall only has four claws. Legend goes that when the wall was first completed in the Qing dynasty, like the dragon in royal palaces, they all have four claws. The feudal ruler, regarding it as a sign of irreverence and rebellion, then cut one of the claws of each dragon.

Travel Tips:

Address: No. 218, Anren Road

Tel: 8621-6328-2465 (Only Chinese service)

Tickets: 30 yuan; 10 yuan for children under 140cm tall and elderly aged over 70.

Hours: 8am - 5:30pm

To get there: Bus No.11, 66, 126, 926

Related Tours: Shanghai Tour

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