Discover Suzhou
Pingjiang Road
平江路
An 800-year-old canal street that matches the layout on a Song dynasty stone map of the city, now lined with teahouses, Pingtan ballad parlours and small shops. It is the most atmospheric free walk in Suzhou.
The story
What makes this place special
Pingjiang Road, once Shiquan Li, takes its name from Pingjiang, Suzhou's name under the Southern Song. Its real interest is that the street-and-canal grid here matches the Pingjiang Tu, a stone-carved city plan of 1229 that is the oldest surviving engraved city map in China - the 'water and road in parallel, canal and street side by side' double-chessboard layout has survived roughly eight hundred years almost unchanged. The main street runs about 1,606 metres beside the Pingjiang canal, the district covers around 0.4 square kilometres with some 3km of waterways, and it holds eighteen stone bridges, twelve of which are on the 1229 map.
What you’ll discover
A single stone-paved lane on the east bank of a narrow canal, with low whitewashed houses, humpbacked stone bridges every hundred metres or so, and small boats poled along the water. The street itself is now tea houses, bookshops, snack stalls and souvenir shops, but fifty-one side alleys run off it at right angles and those are still ordinary residential Suzhou. Inside the district are the Couple's Garden Retreat, the China Pingtan (Suzhou ballad) Museum and the Kunqu Opera Museum on Zhongzhangjia Lane, and several scholars' former residences including Hong Jun's on Xuanqiao Lane.
A little local insight
Good to know before you go
- The alleys are the visit, not the main street. Turn into any of the numbered lanes running east off Pingjiang Road and within twenty metres you are in a residential Suzhou of laundry, bicycles and courtyard doors, with no shops and no crowd.
- Walk the west bank, not the east. The main commercial frontage is one side; the opposite bank is quieter and gives you the view of the houses over the water that you came for.
- Go at opening time or after about 8pm. Between late morning and early evening it is a very crowded shopping street; at night the canal lighting comes on and after the day-trippers leave it is genuinely atmospheric.
- The Pingtan and Kunqu museums are two minutes apart on the same side lane and both are small, free or near-free, and almost empty. The Pingtan museum has an old performance hall and short live sets - this is the cheapest way in China to hear Suzhou ballad singing properly rather than as background music in a tea house.
- Enter from the north if you are coming from the Humble Administrator's Garden, which is a few minutes' walk away, and from the south (Ganjiang East Road end) if you are coming by metro. The stone Pingjiang Tu stele is in the pavilion at the south entrance - look at it before you walk the street, not after.
When to come
Early morning for empty stone and local life, or after 8pm for lantern light on the canal. Weekdays only if you can manage it; spring and autumn evenings are the pleasantest and the street is unbearable during the October and May holidays.
Getting around
The main lane is flat stone paving and a wheelchair can use most of its length, but the surface is uneven old flagstone and the stone bridges across the canal are all stepped with no ramps, so crossing between banks is not possible without help. The side alleys are flat but narrow. Canal boats require a step down into the hull. Realistically a wheelchair user can do a there-and-back along one bank; a bad knee is fine as long as you stay off the bridges.
Worth knowing before you go
Turn off the main street into the side lanes (Daru Lane, Dongjia Lane) within about 50 metres the crowds disappear and you are in an ordinary residential neighbourhood.
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