Shen Garden

Shen Garden at 318 Lu Xun Middle Road in Yuecheng District is a Song-dynasty garden in the old centre of Shaoxing, Zhejiang, China. It is best known for the love story of the poet Lu You (1125-1210) and his former wife Tang Wan, who met by chance in the garden years after their forced separation. Lu You wrote his poem to the tune Phoenix Hairpin on a wall here, and Tang Wan is said to have answered with a poem of her own. Those verses remain the garden's emotional heart, and a poem wall displays them in calligraphy. The grounds are compact and laid out in the southern Chinese manner, with ponds crossed by small bridges, rockeries, winding covered walkways, pavilions, old trees and carved lattice windows that frame views. Visitors usually follow the path past the pond to the poem wall, climb the rockery for a view over the tile roofs, and rest in a pavilion. A visit takes about one to one and a half hours. The day ticket costs about 40 yuan, and the garden opens around 8:00 AM. On selected dates an evening programme called Shen Garden Night runs from about 5:30 PM to 9:00 PM, with lanterns, costumed performers and staged scenes from the poets' story; those tickets have been reported at roughly 80 to 98 yuan. Mornings on weekdays are the calmest, while weekends and holidays bring tour groups, and the evening show is busiest in summer. The best photographs come from the bridges over the pond, where pavilions and willows reflect in the water, and from the rockery looking back across the roofs. The garden sits about 10 to 15 minutes on foot from Lu Xun Native Place, so the two sites pair naturally in one day, and the Shaoxing Museum is also within walking distance.