Suzhou was simply lovely.

 

It was here that we spotted a pattern developing: we had both started to prefer the smaller towns, places where you could walk around the city centre, places with a pleasant collection of attractive sights, places with one railway station and no metro.  Places that in the UK would be the equivalent of... Stratford. Is this how it happens, slowly but surely you become tired of the relentlessness of big (exciting/vibrant) cities and settle for a nice, convenient commuter town? hmm.

 

In keeping with the geriatric vibe we visited a number of delightful gardens and wandered slowly along the pretty old canals.  There were a few young'uns about, and we grumbled as our view of a pagoda or an interesting plant label was interrupted by the beep of a scooter or megaphone touting brightly coloured tour guidette. Not wanting to eat any of that funny foreign muck for lunch we settled on an italian owned restaurant with a grammatically correct English menu and the Premier League on TV.