CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Linping it runs 311 km to Linping; allow about 4 h 36 of riding. The stops in between: Nanxun Section of Jiangnan Canal, The Retreat & Reflection Garden, The Master-of-Nets Garden and Classical Gardens of Suzhou. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
The Grand Canal of China is the longest artificial waterway in the world, a chain of canals and rivers linking Beijing with Hangzhou that was begun in sections well over two thousand years ago and unified under the Sui dynasty in the seventh century. Its southernmost stretch, the Jiangnan Canal, crosses the flat, watery plain between Jiaxing and Hangzhou, and this section is part of the UNESCO World Heritage site. Grain, silk and salt moved north along it for centuries, and the towns that line its banks grew rich on that traffic.
Read the complete Jiaxing-Hangzhou Section of Jiangnan Canal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Jiaxing-Hangzhou Section of Jiangnan Canal is where the day begins. Next is Nanxun Section of Jiangnan Canal.
Nanxun is one of the water towns of the Yangtze delta, south of Lake Tai, where life has revolved around canals for more than a thousand years. In the nineteenth century, it became immensely rich through the silk trade, and its merchant families, known by nicknames like the four elephants and the eight bulls, built mansions that mixed Chinese courtyards with European columns, stained glass and Western-style furniture, an unusual blend you will not find in many other water towns. The canal running through the town is part of the Grand Canal, the immense waterway linking Beijing with Hangzhou, which UNESCO listed in 2014.
Read the complete Nanxun Section of Jiangnan Canal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nanxun Section of Jiangnan Canal comes up about 52 km into the recorded legs. Next is The Retreat & Reflection Garden.
The name says almost everything. Tuisi Garden, the Garden of Retreat and Reflection, was built in the 1880s in the water town of Tongli by an official named Ren Lansheng after he was dismissed from his post, and he called it after the old idea that a man out of office should withdraw and think about his faults. What he actually created was one of the most graceful small gardens in the region: pavilions and halls arranged around a pond as if they were floating on it, with rockeries, covered walkways and windows that frame views like paintings.
Read the complete The Retreat & Reflection Garden write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 108 km into the recorded legs you reach The Retreat & Reflection Garden. Next is The Master-of-Nets Garden.
Suzhou has been famous for gardens for about a thousand years, and the Master-of-Nets Garden is often called the best of them, though it is among the smallest. It was first laid out in the twelfth century by a retired official and rebuilt in the eighteenth, and the name means fisherman, a modest title for a retiree who wanted to live like one. Everything is arranged to make a small plot of land feel limitless. A pond sits at the centre, with halls, pavilions and covered walkways around it, rocks piled like mountains, a zigzag bridge, and views that are framed by windows cut into walls in the shape of fans, moons and vases. One of its courtyards was copied in New York's Metropolitan Museum as the Astor Court.
Read the complete The Master-of-Nets Garden write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Master-of-Nets Garden, about halfway. Next is Classical Gardens of Suzhou.
A classical Chinese garden is a whole landscape squeezed into a courtyard: rocks stand in for mountains, ponds for lakes, and a winding covered walkway reveals one framed view after another, each window cut in a different shape. Suzhou, a canal city west of Shanghai, perfected the art over centuries, as scholars, officials and merchants built private retreats behind high white walls. Nine of its gardens are listed by UNESCO as the Classical Gardens of Suzhou, among them the Humble Administrator's Garden, the Lingering Garden and the tiny, exquisite Master-of-Nets Garden, and the Retreat and Reflection Garden in the water town of Tongli.
Read the complete Classical Gardens of Suzhou write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Classical Gardens of Suzhou sits at 153 km, about halfway. Next is back through The Master-of-Nets Garden.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Master-of-Nets Garden write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Master-of-Nets Garden comes up about 181 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through The Retreat & Reflection Garden.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Retreat & Reflection Garden write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 204 km into the recorded legs you reach back through The Retreat & Reflection Garden. Next is back through Nanxun Section of Jiangnan Canal.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Nanxun Section of Jiangnan Canal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Nanxun Section of Jiangnan Canal, late in the day. Next is Jiaxing-Hangzhou Section of Jiangnan Canal.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Jiaxing-Hangzhou Section of Jiangnan Canal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 311 km.
Jiaxing-Hangzhou Section of Jiangnan Canal → Nanxun Section of Jiangnan Canal is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Nanxun Section of Jiangnan Canal → The Retreat & Reflection Garden is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Retreat & Reflection Garden → The Master-of-Nets Garden is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Master-of-Nets Garden → Classical Gardens of Suzhou is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Classical Gardens of Suzhou → back through The Master-of-Nets Garden is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Master-of-Nets Garden → back through The Retreat & Reflection Garden is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Retreat & Reflection Garden → back through Nanxun Section of Jiangnan Canal is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Nanxun Section of Jiangnan Canal → Jiaxing-Hangzhou Section of Jiangnan Canal is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.