Wangshi Yuan (Master of the Nets Garden) is the smallest and most-celebrated of Suzhou's Ming-dynasty classical gardens, and the only one that opens for evening tours March-November. Your guide picks you up at 6:30pm, dines you at a canal-side Suzhou restaurant (signature: Songshu Guiyu — 'squirrel mandarin fish'), then escorts you into the lantern-lit garden. Eight rotating pavilions stage 5-minute performances: Pingtan ballad-singing with pipa, Kunqu opera arias, guqin solo, Suzhou silk-string ensemble, and shadow puppetry. Move at your own pace through the candlelit rockeries and reflecting pool. Return by 10:30pm.
