Yu Garden 豫园

Yu Garden lies in Huangpu District, in the northeast of Shanghai's old city, with Yuyuan Bazaar and the City God Temple just to its southwest. It is a classical Jiangnan garden, a national key cultural relic protection unit and a 4A-rated scenic area, and for many travellers it is the most convenient of China's great southern gardens to reach.

Pan Yunduan, a Shanghai native who had served as Sichuan's provincial administration commissioner, began work in 1559 on vegetable plots beside the family home, wanting his father, Pan En, to enjoy an easy old age. The name speaks of peace and contentment. The Ming garden designer Zhang Nanyang laid out the grounds and took part in the building; after more than twenty years of work it covered over 70 mu. Long praised as the finest garden in the southeast, it is now about 30 mu in size and more than 460 years old.

Inside, halls, towers, pavilions and covered walkways look out on rockeries, ponds, streams and old trees, with more than 40 structures in all. The garden has weathered wars and a spell divided among guilds; repairs begun in 1956 led to its reopening in 1961, and Chen Congzhou directed the restoration of the eastern section in 1986.

Don't miss

• Great Rockery, the oldest and largest yellow-stone rockery in Jiangnan
• Yulinglong stone, one of Jiangnan's three famous garden rocks
• Dianchun Hall, headquarters of the 1853 Small Swords Uprising
• Sansui Hall, the first main building inside the garden
• Five dragons on the walls, added in the 1950s

Visiting tips

Take metro line 10 to Yuyuan station and walk east along Fuyou Road for about 600 metres; the entrance is by the zigzag bridge near Huxinting. Allow around two hours, and pair the visit with the neighbouring City God Temple and bazaar.