17 Dec 2017 - Shanghai Day 3: Suzhou Museum (苏州博物馆)

After lunch, we followed the sightseeing walking trail along Xibeijie (西北街) towards Dongbei pedestrian street (东北步行街).  There are many stores along the walking street selling local products.

At one point, we saw people queuing to enter an attraction.  Without knowing where it will lead us to, we simply followed the queue until we reached the entrance to Suzhou Museum (苏州博物馆).

This is a museum of ancient Chinese art, ancient Chinese paintings, calligraphy, and handmade crafts.  Suzhou Museum has been a highly-regarded regional museum with a number of significant Chinese cultural relics.  Admission is free.

In 1960, the museum was founded and first open to the public in the former residence of the Zhong Prince of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (太平天国忠王府).

The museum has a display area of 2,200 square meters. It has more than 15,000 pieces in its collections. Most are ancient paintings and calligraphy, ceramics, crafts, unearthed relics and revolution relics. It also possesses more than 70,000 books and documents, and over 20,000 rubbings of stone inscriptions. The collection of paintings and calligraphy includes works of masters from Song Dynasty to Ming and Qing dynasties.

We took a short rest at an ancient hut within the museum before moving on to our next destination.

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