"Venice in the Orient" Draws More TouristsThe 2000 China Suzhou International Tourists Festival, which started on April 7 in Suzhou known as "Venice in the Orient", has drawn an increasing number of overseas tourists from the United States, Japan, Singapore and a dozen other countries.The two-month festival, co-sponsored by China's National Tourism Administration and the Suzhou City People's Government, presents tour routes to major picturesque gardens and museums in the downtown area and various scenic spots and historical sites on the outskirts of the city in east China's Jiangsu Province. A food festival, a film week, a photo show, a fair, as well as other cultural and economic activities are also being staged here. Suzhou gardens, famous for their delicate designs of hills and ponds, pavilions, terraces, corridors and towers, can be dated back to about 514 BC when the city was built. There were as many as 200 gardens in the city in its prime period between the 16th to 18th centuries. The gardens have long been considered as the quintessence of Chinese horticulture. The World Heritage Committee refers to Suzhou as the cradle of horticulture in the world. Four of the gardens, Zhuozheng, Liuyuan, Wangshi, and Huanxiu, were put on the World Heritage list in December 1997. |
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