Garden Hotel Guangzhou
You come up out of the Taojin Metro exit and the city is all glass and hurry, then you turn through the porte-cochère of the 广州花园酒店 Guǎngzhōu Huāyuán Jiǔdiàn and the noise simply stops. Ahead of you a long reflecting channel runs toward a waterfall that drops eighteen metres down a garden wall, and the air smells of cut grass and warm stone. It is the kind of lobby that makes you lower your voice without being asked, and you realise you have stepped into the largest garden of any city hotel in southern China.
Opened in 1985 as the first luxury landmark five-star hotel in South China, the Garden Hotel Guangzhou was a flagship of the Lingnan Group and remains a love letter to 岭南 Lǐngnán culture written in marble and banyan leaf. Behind its 30-storey tower lies a 21,000-square-metre garden, threaded with koi ponds, pavilions and the famous Twin Waterfalls Shuāng Pùbù, and dotted with 26 cultural and artistic installations that tell the story of Cantonese craft. It is a hotel that treats nature as the main guest, not a backdrop.
The Building
The hotel is built around the garden rather than on top of it. Guest lifts open onto corridors lined with Lingnan paintings, and the public rooms hold one of the finest collections of regional art in any Guangzhou hotel, from embroidered screens to ceramic murals. The scale is generous without being cold: wide staircases, a fountain court, and a restaurant floor that looks down into the canopy of the courtyard trees.
The Rooms and Food
The 828 rooms and suites begin at a compact but comfortable 32 m² in the Garden and Kapok Mùmián categories, rising to the 64 m² Yueyun Yuèyùn rooms with city or garden views and the 96 m² Garden Suites with private terraces over the greenery. Pin your hopes on a room facing the garden; the morning light comes through the leaves and turns the whole wall gold. Downstairs, the Liwan Pavilion Lǐwān Tíng is the place for an opulent Cantonese breakfast of shrimp dumplings and congee, while the seafood restaurant on the rooftop is worth the ride up for the skyline alone.
Practicalities
Price. Around ¥830 to ¥1,500 per night for a standard room, with suites from ¥1,800; festive and Canton Fair weeks run considerably higher.
Address. 368 Huanshi East Road, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510095 (广州市越秀区环市东路368号).
Rooms. 828 guest rooms and suites plus 150 serviced apartments; Garden and Kapok rooms at 32 m², Yueyun rooms at 64 m², Garden Suites at 96 m², with garden, city and park views.
Getting there. Guangzhou Metro Line 5, Taojin Station (淘金站) Exit A, is a 2-minute walk (about 140 m). Guangzhou Railway Station is roughly 3 km away; Baiyun International Airport is a 35-45 minute drive (about 32 km).
flowcloud would say that the finest luxury in a southern city is a window that opens onto a garden older than the building holding it.
Where to stay: Garden Hotel Guangzhou (广州花园酒店 Guǎngzhōu Huāyuán Jiǔdiàn), 368 Huanshi East Road, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou 510095 (广州市越秀区环市东路368号); rooms from around ¥830 per night, the 64 m² Yueyun garden-view room the sweet spot; take Guangzhou Metro Line 5 to Taojin Station Exit A, a 2-minute walk, or a 35-45 minute drive from Baiyun International Airport.