City guide · Zhejiang
A lake in the middle of a city, a tea village in the hills, and two thousand years of getting the mood right.
Reviewed by our Beijing team Updated 2026-10-10
The short version
City guide
Photographs from the coast, and what other travellers wrote afterwards.
Whether you love Hangzhou or not, whether you tire of it or not, Hangzhou is there and West Lake is there, and has been for two thousand years. — 'Four Seasons of West Lake, Delicious Hangzhou'
A traveller's note in the source guide
Watch the calm surface of the lake, hear the bell carried across the water; sit for a while at the top of the pagoda and imagine your soul drifting out of your body, out of the world in front of you, up into the clouds. — 'A romantic trip for one: Hangzhou, Xitang'
A traveller's note in the source guide
Hangzhou is a city built around a lake, and it has spent two thousand years perfecting the art of making that lake worth looking at. Du Fu's Su Shi line is the one everyone quotes — compare West Lake to Xi Shi and no amount of make-up or none is wrong — and the point of it is that the view changes with the weather and with the season, so that there is no wrong time to look, only different ones. The lake is free, the parks around it are free, and the whole circuit is walkable or rideable.
Inland from the water, the city climbs into tea hills. Longjing village is where the best Dragon Well tea is grown, from the eighteen imperial bushes below Lion Peak; Meijiawu is where Hangzhou people go on a weekend to drink, eat farmhouse food and play cards all afternoon. This is the part of Hangzhou that visitors underestimate: the tea isn't a sight, it's a way to spend a day.
Hangzhou is also a temple city and a museum city, quietly. Lingyin — literally 'the retreat of the immortals' — is one of the great working temples of the south, busy with incense and, on the first morning of the lunar year, with a crowd fighting for the first joss stick. Around the lake there are the Zhejiang Museum, the Xiling Seal Society and the tomb of Li Shutong, who was both a brilliant artist and a monk, and wrote the words to the song Chinese children learn as Farewell.
The important thing to know before you come is the season. Hangzhou is genuinely beautiful in spring and autumn, and genuinely hard in summer and winter: summer is one of the old furnaces, winter is wet and cold to the bone, and the plum rain of early summer can go forty days without clearing. Book spring or autumn, arrive by air or high-speed rail, and give the city three unhurried days.
Hangzhou
Seven things that are worth rearranging a day for.
Highlights
West Lake and all twenty of its named scenes — ten old, ten new — cost nothing, and the whole shoreline is walkable or rideable. The lake is not a single view but a set of weathers: Su Causeway in spring, Lotus in the Breeze at Quyuan in summer, Autumn Moon on the Calm Lake, and Broken Bridge in Snow in winter.
Longjing village grows the country's most famous green tea, the eighteen imperial bushes standing below Lion Peak, and Meijiawu, ten li of farmhouse teahouses along Meiling Road, is where Hangzhou spends a weekend. Tasting is free; you buy only if you want to, and in the village it is cheaper than the city tea markets.
Lingyin means 'the retreat of the immortals', and it lives up to the name, set in wooded hills west of the lake with the Feilai Peak carvings on the way in. It is a working temple with a great deal of incense burning and, at midnight on the lunar New Year, a crowd competing for the first joss stick.
Hangzhou has been the capital of the Wu-Yue kingdom and of the Southern Song, one of China's seven great ancient capitals, and it has kept the artifacts: the Zhejiang Museum on Solitary Hill, the Xiling Seal Society founded in 1904, the tomb of the artist-monk Li Shutong above Tiger Spring, and the studio of the painter Han Meilin.
Hangzhou cooking is the light, fresh, 'clear and distinctive' edge of Zhejiang cuisine, and the signature dishes are famous for a reason — Dongpo pork, West Lake vinegar fish, Longjing prawns and water-shield soup. Su Shi said no banquet in the empire matched Hangzhou's, and he is quoted on the subject to this day.
The lake is free, the public bikes are free for the first hour, the metro runs ¥2–8, and a bowl of noodles or a plate of small steamed buns costs a few yuan. For a city with this much culture and scenery, the price of seeing it is remarkably low — which is not something you can say about every famous destination.
Suggested routes
The best of Hangzhou compressed: temple in the morning, lake all afternoon, old street at night.
Start early at Lingyin temple, taking in the Feilai Peak carvings on the way in and, if you like, a vegetarian lunch at the temple, which is better than it needs to be. Then ride bus 7 to the lake and give the whole afternoon to Xianghu.
Walk or ride the lake — North Mountain Road past Broken Bridge and the Bai Causeway, along Hubin Road, round to South Mountain Road for the Leifeng Pagoda and Taiziwan park. Eat dinner on Gaoyin Street, then walk off the meal on Hefang Street, the rebuilt Southern Song shopping street, finishing at Wushan Square.
Stops: Lingyin templeFeilai PeakWest Lake shorelineHefang StreetWushan Square
Lake and temple on day one, tea village and the old city on day two.
Lingyin early for the temples and the carvings, a vegetarian lunch at the temple, then the lake in the afternoon by the Yanggong Causeway, Su Causeway, Bai Causeway and Broken Bridge. Hubin Road runs into the bar street on South Mountain Road — pick one and finish the day with a drink and some live music.
Stops: Lingyin templeYanggong CausewaySu CausewayBroken BridgeSouth Mountain Road
A slow morning in Longjing village for the tea, the terraces and the eighteen imperial bushes, then bus back to Wushan Square and Hefang Street for the shops — the century-old pharmacy Hu Qingyu Tang among them. Cross to the Southern Song Imperial Street on Zhongshan Middle Road, and eat dinner on Gaoyin Street, which is all restaurants and always busy.
Stops: Longjing villageHefang StreetHu Qingyu TangSouthern Song Imperial StreetGaoyin Street
If you are not in a hurry: add the wetland, the museums and a day in the hills.
Temples and carvings in the morning, then the Songcheng theme park for the 'Romance of the Song Dynasty' show, and the China Academy of Art's riverside campus if there is time. Finish on South Mountain Road.
Stops: Feilai PeakLingyinSongchengChina Academy of Art
The lake by whichever means you like — on foot, by bike, by sightseeing cart — then Jingci temple by the water, quieter than Lingyin and better for it. In the afternoon take a boat on the Xixi wetland, a landscape that goes back to the Han and Jin, and eat dinner on South Mountain Road.
Stops: West LakeJingci templeXixi wetland
Tea in Longjing in the morning, then Baochu Pagoda on the low hill by the lake for a full view west, and the Grand Canal in the evening — a water bus from the Wulin Square pier, or the canal sightseeing boat.
Stops: Longjing villageBaochu PagodaGrand Canal
The Zhejiang Museum on Solitary Hill, the Xiling Seal Society at the West Cold Bridge, and the tomb of Li Shutong in Tiger Spring park. Then the Zhuantang art district, a former cement works turned into studios, for something contemporary.
Stops: Zhejiang MuseumXiling Seal SocietyLi Shutong's tombZhuantang art district
Either a day in the hills — the Jingshan temple, or one of the four riding routes out into the tea country — or, in the autumn, out to the Qiantang river for the bore tide, ideally at Yanguan in Haining for the full thing.
Stops: Jingshan templeTea-country riding routeQiantang river tide
Sights
Free, and the reason you came
The lake at the centre of the city, ringed by causeways, hills and a shoreline you can walk all the way round. Twenty scenes are officially named — the ten old ones including Su Causeway in Spring, Autumn Moon on the Calm Lake, Broken Bridge in Snow and Leifeng Pagoda at Sunset, the ten new ones including Nine Creeks in Mist, Osmanthus Rain at Manjuelong and Longjing Tea at Longjing. The strongest recommendation in the source guide is to go for the new scenes too, not just the famous old ones.
Tip Do the lake in sections and rest between them. Cruise boats can be chartered for ¥80 a boat, and the price is posted — do not take the touts' boats, which quote whatever they think you will pay.
The temple you pay for
Lingyin means 'the retreat of the immortals' and sits in a wooded fold northwest of the lake, one of the busiest working temples in the south. The way in runs through the Feilai Peak scenic area, whose limestone hill is famous from the stories of the mad monk Ji Gong and is honeycombed with Buddhist carvings; inside the temple the halls are heavy with incense and the faithful.
Tip If you want the hill walk rather than the temple, the classic route runs Lingyin — Shantianzhu — Jiulong Baita — Tianmen Mountain — Shililangdang — Wuyun Mountain — Linhai Pavilion — Jiuxi.
The other landscape
A wide wetland west of the city, from Wener West Road to Tianmu Mountain Road, made famous nationally by a line in the film 'If You Are the One' — 'Xixi, stay a while' — which is why its free-Monday concession was withdrawn. Phase one has eight sights, including the misty fishing village and the autumn-snow hermitage; about three quarters of the wetland is free, if you want to save the ticket.
Tip Best in each season for a different thing — spring greenery, summer water caltrop, autumn reeds, winter plum. Take a boat.
Where the tea is from
A long, thin village on Longjing Mountain, with a well at the entrance that gives it its name and a single road running through to the Nine Creeks. Both sides are farmhouse teahouses; pick one that looks right and the owners will bring out teas of several grades, brew them and let you taste — the tasting is free because they want to sell you tea, and the tea here is usually better and cheaper than the city markets. The eighteen old bushes, famous for the Qianlong emperor, cost ¥10 to visit and are less interesting than the ancient trees around them.
Tip Bargain hard — the grades differ hugely in price and you can usually halve the asking price. Also worth knowing: Su Shi and the monk Biancai were friends here, and the friendship is celebrated on the spot.
The old commercial street
Hefang Street, also called Qinghefang, is a restored Southern Song street east of Wushan Square, lined with souvenirs and snacks and always full. The genuine old thing in the middle of it is Hu Qingyu Tang, the pharmacy founded by the merchant Hu Xueyan and the Hangzhou answer to Beijing's Tongrentang — still a working pharmacy that Hangzhou people go to for consultations and medicine.
Tip The adjacent Gaoyin Street is entirely restaurants and is where you eat afterwards — try the busy ones, not the empty ones.
The two legends
Leifeng Pagoda stands on the south shore and is one of the ten old scenes — Leifeng at Sunset — and the place to climb for the view back across the whole lake. Broken Bridge, on the Bai Causeway, is the bridge from the White Snake legend, where Xu Xian and Bai Suzhen are said to have met; the bridge is not broken, and it is a short walk from the north end of the lake.
Tip White Snake and Liang Zhu both end tragically and both are set here, which is why the town's romance has a bittersweet reputation. Come at the right hour and you will understand why.
Free culture
On the southern foot of Solitary Hill at the centre of the lake scenic area, built in November 1929 in a Jiangnan garden style across six halls, the main one a permanent exhibition and the branches dedicated to celadon, painting, crafts, coins and international gifts. It holds more than 100,000 objects covering Zhejiang's history from Hemudu to the present.
Tip Pair it with the Xiling Seal Society at the West Cold Bridge — founded 1904, the oldest surviving literati society in China, and set in some of the loveliest gardens on the lake.
The two shows
Songcheng is China's most-visited theme park, a rebuilt Song-dynasty town with seventy-two old craft workshops, puppet and shadow shows and street theatre, and its centrepiece is the 'Romance of the Song Dynasty' stage spectacular. Impression West Lake is the other spectacle: a Zhang Yimou outdoor production staged on the water itself from March to December, with music by Kitaro and a rain of water and light over the lake.
Tip The Impression show is outdoors on the water and only runs March to December — check the calendar before you build an evening around it.
Food
The city's signature dish, named for Su Shi, who is said to have cut up the pork the people gave him, braised it rich red and handed it out to the workers building the causeway. Skin thin and meat tender, glossy red, full-flavoured, falling apart but keeping its shape — rich and melting without being greasy.
The other classic: a West Lake carp, starved a day or two first to clear it of mud, cooked in three or four minutes to the second and then dressed in a smooth, glossy sweet-and-sour sauce. The pectoral fins stand up, the flesh is delicate with a faint crab note, and the taste is fresh, tender, sweet and sour at once.
River prawns cooked with Dragon Well tea picked around Qingming, so that the tea's fragrance gets into the prawns; sweet and fresh on the tongue with a long finish. One of Hangzhou's most representative dishes, and the version at Lou Wailou is a good place to start.
Water shield is a specialty of West Lake itself, and the soup — originally called chicken-and-ham water-shield soup — is a traditional Hangzhou dish: jade-green water shield, white chicken and red ham, smooth and fragrant in a clear, pure broth. Picture first, flavour second.
The speciality of the century-old Zhimeiguan house, made with a leavened white-flour skin and a filling of fresh pork, or pork with prawn, or chicken with ham, plus a little meat jelly; steamed in small bamboo baskets over a fierce flame, and named for what is in them.
Yanduxian is a home dish, salted pork simmered with spring bamboo shoots, and Hangzhou people love it because the countryside round about — Lin'an, Anji — is a country of bamboo. The southern shoots are genuinely good; do not take anyone's word for it, taste them.
A Hangzhou speciality, sweet without being cloying: mix a little cold water first, then top up with boiling water and it turns into a clear, glossy paste. Sold in every supermarket, with the Yimeilian brand the one Hangzhou people buy; about ¥20 for a large pack.
Beyond the famous names there are three restaurant streets worth knowing: Qingzhiwu, Shengli River and Gaoyin Street (behind Hefang Street). The dishes are the same classics, the prices are a good deal kinder, and the atmosphere is where Hangzhou actually eats rather than where it takes visitors.
Where to eat
The institution
The restaurant everyone argues about and everyone still recommends: on Solitary Hill by the lake, the standard-bearer for classic Hangzhou cooking and the place to order West Lake vinegar fish, Dongpo pork and Longjing prawns in the canonical versions. The ingredients are dependable and the prices are high; on a first visit it is worth doing once, and it will not disappoint badly. Book ahead in season and sit upstairs if you can.
Cheap, busy, beloved
Famous across the country for a ¥3 plate of mapo tofu and for the queue — an hour at peak times is normal. The setting is pleasant, the service good, the cooking generous and well made, and the prices hard to believe for a city restaurant of this quality. There are branches all over Hangzhou, so ask your hotel for the nearest.
The evolved home version
A restaurant that took Hangzhou cooking and made it plainer and cheaper without making it worse: busy, warm, popular with regulars, and a menu where you simply order what you like. The branch in the Jiebai building on Yan'an Road is easy to find and well placed for after a day at the lake.
The old snack house
A century-old name with branches across the city and a reputation summed up in its old tagline — 'park for the flavour, dismount for the scent'. The snacks are the thing: small steamed buns, sweet lotus root, cat's-ear pasta, pian er chuan noodles, all properly made, and the Dongpo pork and vinegar fish are not to be missed either. The original-style Renhe Road branch near the lake is the one to pick.
The one the bosses eat at
You can skip Lou Wailou and you can skip Grandmother's Home, but in local opinion skipping Gechang marks you out. It is a favourite of some very recognisable names from the city's tech and property industries. The signature dishes are the seafood curry rice-crust roll, baked cheese with mushrooms and Hakka aubergine casserole. Book.
Hidden, garden, live music
Hard to find and worth finding: a retro garden restaurant under vines, with good food and a foreign singer performing, tucked into the green hills. The kind of place where the setting earns half the bill — order the roast lamb chops, the house rice wine and the 'Li Shizhen' stir-fry.
Open-air food
A 'street-bar' model running from five in the afternoon, with open-air stands built out along the north side of the road: local snacks, smokeless barbecue, drinks, a bit of everything. The most social dinner in Hangzhou, and cheap.
Under-rated
Lingyin serves lunch, and the source guide is emphatic that it is worth having — proper vegetarian cooking rather than a café bite, eaten in the grounds of one of the south's great temples. Do it on the day you visit Lingyin and it solves lunch at the same time.
Shows and festivals
On the water
The show most visitors plan a night around: an outdoor production staged on West Lake itself, drawing on Hangzhou's legends and history, with a rain effect manufactured over the water and music by the Japanese composer Kitaro. A Zhang Yimou production, running March to December.
Tip It is outdoors, so dress for the water at night even in summer, and there is no show outside the March–December season.
Spring and autumn
Hangzhou runs its year by what is in bloom. The cherry and tulip festival at Taiziwan runs late March to early April, with more than a hundred Japanese cherries and tulips; the plum blossom at Chaoshan runs 15 February to 15 March, with the memorial hall to the painter Wu Changshuo; magnolia peaks at the botanical garden; and May brings the crabapple and the first of the tea.
Tip The best single-species spots: cherry and tulip at Taiziwan, peach all along the lake, magnolia at the botanical garden, osmanthus in Manjuelong in late September.
Twice a year
Running since 2008, twice a year — once in May and once in late October or November. It is a gentle, 'small and pretty' line-up, heavy on bands and singers from the south, Taiwan and Shanghai; Zhang Zhenyue, Tanya Chua, Deserts Chang and others have all played it. The early editions were on the Liulang Wenying lawns by the lake, and it moved to Taiziwan park in 2009.
Tip Dates shift year to year and are announced late — check the official listings before you plan a trip around it.
Autumn
The Xihu Expo, running mid-October to early November, is Hangzhou's big cultural month: an art fair, a stamp exhibition, an international fireworks display, a silk fashion festival, a book fair, a food festival, photography exhibitions and a stack of forums. The fireworks display is its own one-off event, held in mid-October and moved between West Lake, the Grand Canal and the Qiantang river each year.
Tip If your dates catch the expo, plan one day for it and pick only the events you care about — it is far too large to do whole.
Dragon Boat Festival
The dragon-boat races at Jiangcun, in the Xixi wetland, are a genuine local custom rather than a tourist event: recorded from the Tang, flourishing under the Southern Song and still going in the Qing, when the Qianlong emperor came and gave them the name 'Hezhu dragon-boat racing'. On the morning of the festival the crews row in from the surrounding waterways, boats painted bow to stern, and the racing is for the spectacle rather than the placing — people capsize, right the boat and carry on, and the banks are packed.
Tip Arrive early for a spot on the bank — by mid-morning the riverside is a wall of people.
Spring and autumn
The Hangzhou Animation Festival runs 26 April to 1 May at the White Horse Lake animation plaza in Binjiang — a large cosplay event as much as an industry fair, so expect One Piece and Bleach characters everywhere. In autumn, the Qiantang river bore tide, biggest around the eighteenth of the eighth lunar month, is watched from Yanguan in Haining or from the river bank in Hangzhou itself; the wave runs one to two metres high, up to three, moving upstream at about 20 km an hour.
Tip For the tide, get a fixed spot well before the wave and listen for it before you see it; the sound arrives first. Watch from the bank, never from the water.
Shopping
The obvious buy and the one to be careful with. Buy in spring, preferably around Qingming, and go to Longjing village rather than a tea shop for the best price; taste before you buy and bargain, since grades differ hugely. Genuine Dragon Well is flat, smooth and straight, tender green and glossy, with a fresh, clean fragrance and a sweet, mellow taste. There are two kinds of Longjing sold — real West Lake Longjing and generic Zhejiang Longjing — and if you do not know tea, buy from a large city supermarket rather than a roadside stand.
Hangzhou is called the house of silk, and the place to buy it is the Hangzhou Silk City opposite the Huanbei small-goods market on Fengqi Road. Two warnings from the source guide: the goods there vary widely in quality, so take someone who knows, and the market shuts at night, so go in daylight. If you would rather pay for certainty, Du Jinsheng, a silk factory founded in 1922, is the old-name answer.
Bamboo ribs, silk canopy, light and pretty and genuinely useful — the umbrella is known as the flower of West Lake. It shades as well as it shelters, and it is decorative enough to carry for its own sake. Sold in the Hangzhou Silk City and on Hefang Street.
A Hangzhou speciality, smooth and fragrant, sold in every supermarket; the Yimeilian brand is the one local families buy, about ¥20 for a large bag. Mix with a little cold water first, then top up with boiling water, and it turns into a glossy, clear paste. Cheap, light and easy to carry.
For clothes and the cheap-and-fashionable hunt, Sijiqing is one of the largest wholesale clothing markets in China — go to the busier old Sijiqing by the main station. For electronics, Wensan Road's information street can replace a lost camera charger or memory card in a hurry. For luxury, the Hubin international names street is one of the country's three big luxury clusters.
Hangzhou's department stores and brand shops discount harder than in most Chinese cities, which is why it has a reputation as a shopping town. Beyond the classic souvenirs — lotus starch, silk umbrellas, tea — the city now sells fashion as much as it sells local products, and the range runs from luxury to very cheap.
Where to stay
Choosing an area
Hangzhou's accommodation divides cleanly. High-end hotels cluster around Wulin Square and the West Lake scenic area; budget and mid-range chains sit in the Wensan education district and around Wushan Square; and the hostels and boutique guesthouses gather in fouryijing, Qingzhiwu and Lingyin Baitiao Renjia. Siyong well has the best transport and is 10–15 minutes on foot from the Su Causeway; Qingzhiwu is full of good food and next to the botanical garden; Lingyin is quieter and greener but less convenient. Wherever you pick, do not stay out in the suburbs — the buses stop early and taxis are hard to get back from the sights.
On the lake, by the pagoda
Set on the slope below Leifeng Pagoda, one of the ten old scenes, facing the water on the east and next to the old Jingci temple, looking across the lake to the Su Causeway, Three Pools Mirroring the Moon and Liulang Wenying, and out to the north and south peaks and Baochu Pagoda. Convenient, reached by buses K4 and K504. From ¥660.
The splurge
Famous for its setting and its service, at the north end of the lake on North Mountain Road: forty acres of garden to walk, an indoor pool, and the lake on the doorstep. The most comfortable way to do Hangzhou if the budget is there.
History on the lake
On North Mountain Road in the core of the scenic area, facing south over the lake, made up of several buildings — the east block, the west block that began as the Gu Yun cottage in 1912, the middle block from 1922, the Qiushui Villa from 1932 and the north block. Three of them are listed modern historical buildings, which makes it a place to stay as much for the walls as the rooms. From ¥618.
Fifty metres from the water
The city's first youth hostel and still the best placed, 50 m from West Lake on South Mountain Road — Chinese architecture and aesthetic, a courtyard, a garden terrace and the Blue Water café next door. Popular to the point of being full, so book a long way ahead. From ¥55.
By the old street
At the foot of Wushan Tianfeng, one of the ten new scenes, and quiet in the middle of the city: buses reach Wushan Square or Qingbo Gate, and the hostel is about a hundred metres up the hill path from 7 Siyi Road. Close to Hefang Street, which makes it a good base for anyone who wants to eat their way through the old town. From ¥45.
Getting around
Xiaoshan International (HGH) is about an hour from the centre and has three terminals, the newest being T3. The usual way in is the airport coach at ¥20; the service runs frequently through the day and drops at the main station, the Metropark hotel and the Wulin Gate ticket office.
Two stations are in use: the main station in the city, which handles almost all services, and Hangzhou South in Xiaoshan, which took over from the East station while it was rebuilt. High-speed rail is the best way in from within the delta.
Metro line 1 opened on 24 November 2012, ¥2–8 a ride. The bus network is huge and cheap, and the Y-prefixed tourist routes are the ones that reach the sights, most usefully Y4, Y5 and Y8. Almost all city buses are exact-fare, so carry small change.
The best way to do the lake. The public scheme has points roughly every 300 m, seven in ten open 24 hours, and a card costs ¥300 (¥200 deposit plus ¥100 of credit), one rider per card, one card per ID up to five cards. The tariffs make it nearly free if you are clever: the first hour is free, the second ¥1, the third ¥2, then ¥3 an hour. Return and re-hire every 59 minutes and a day of riding costs nothing. Private hire round the lake starts around ¥10–20 an hour.
Taxis flag at ¥11 for the first 3 km including a ¥1 fuel surcharge, then ¥2.5 a kilometre from 3 to 10 km, with a 50% empty-running surcharge beyond 10 km, and ¥2.5 for every four minutes of waiting. Driving yourself means watching the plate-number restrictions in the scenic area, which change by weekday and, in spring and autumn, by odd-or-even plate on weekends.
The lake boats are one thing; the canal and the river are another. Water buses run on the Grand Canal between four piers from 07:00 to 18:00, about every half hour, ¥3 in the peak windows and ¥5 the rest of the time; the canal sightseeing cruise is ¥50; the canal night cruise is ¥60–80; and the Qiantang river night cruise, which only runs in summer, is ¥80–120.
Tips
The source guide's clearest warning: Hangzhou's buses stop early and taxis are hard to find at the sights, so a cheap room on the edge of town becomes an expensive taxi ride at the end of a long day. Stay by the lake, by Wushan Square or in the old-town districts.
Every hotel, tourist information point, airport desk and station desk has the Hangzhou Travel Guide free, published by the city's tourism commission in eight languages including English. It is genuinely detailed and covers everything in and around the city — pick one up on arrival.
There are two kinds of Longjing sold and the price gap is enormous. If you do not know tea, buy from a large city supermarket rather than a stand, and never follow the older women who accost you on the road offering to take you to a tea village — they are on commission and the price will be higher, not lower.
The lake-area hotels fill for the May Day, Qingming, National Day and New Year holidays, and the good ones go first. Outside the holidays, in the March-to-October season, expect a ¥40–80 weekend surcharge, which you can sometimes talk your way out of if you are staying several nights.
Buses are exact-fare almost everywhere and there is no change given. Keep a few one-yuan notes and coins on you, and remember that bus fares actually drop in some months — March, April, October and November are half price on most routes.
Lingyin closes at 18:00, the Xixi wetland closes at 17:30 in summer and 17:00 in winter with the last boat tickets at 16:30, and Impression West Lake only runs March to December. Build the day around the closing times rather than the openings.
Practical
Hangzhou is a city that rewards the middle of the day as much as the ends of it — the lake in any weather, a teahouse for the hottest hours, and the tea hills when you need to get out of town without going far.
| Best months | March–May and September–November. Subtropical monsoon, four seasons clear: humid hot summers, damp cold winters. Spring flowers from March; osmanthus and clear skies in autumn |
|---|---|
| Free | West Lake and all twenty of its scenes; the lake shoreline; Jingci temple areas; the Zhejiang Museum; Hefang Street and Wushan Square; public toilets everywhere |
| Tickets | Lingyin complex ¥75 (Feilai Peak ¥45 + temple ¥30), 07:00–18:00; Xixi wetland ¥80 (summer 07:30–17:30, winter 08:30–17:00); Songcheng ¥280 including the show; Hangzhou amusement park ¥160; Jingshan temple ¥5; Impression West Lake ¥200–600 |
| The shows | Impression West Lake 19:45–20:45 and 21:15–22:15 Thursday–Saturday, March–December; Songcheng 10:00–21:00 daily |
| Getting in | Air to Xiaoshan (HGH) plus a ¥20 coach; or high-speed rail to the main station. Metro line 1 ¥2–8; buses ¥1–4; lake-area taxi flagfall ¥11 / 3 km |
| Public bikes | Card ¥300 (¥200 deposit + ¥100); first hour free, then ¥1, ¥2, ¥3 an hour; points every 300 m, most open 24 hours |
| Boats | Lake charter ¥80 a boat; canal sightseeing ¥50; canal night ¥60–80; Qiantang river night (summer) ¥80–120; water bus ¥3–5 |
| Useful numbers | Tourism complaints 0571-96123; bus hotline 0571-85191122; airport 0571-86661234; water bus 0571-88024368 |
Background
People have lived here for more than 4,700 years — the Liangzhu culture, called the dawn of Chinese civilisation, grew up in this region — and legend says that Yu the Great, travelling to a gathering of lords at Kuaiji, 'left his boat and stepped ashore' here, which is supposed to be the origin of the name Yuhang. The name Hangzhou itself is later and the city has kept it ever since.
Its real weight as a city comes from being capital twice: to the Wu-Yue kingdom in the Five Dynasties, and to the Southern Song, which makes it one of China's seven great ancient capitals. That double spell as a seat of power is why it has the temples, the gardens, the seals and the poems — and why the lake was managed, planted, bridged and named rather than simply left alone.
West Lake is not a natural feature someone built a city around; it is a piece of water that generations of officials dredged, diked and landscaped until it became a work of art. The causeways are named for the men who had them built — Su Shi's Su Causeway, Bai Juyi's Bai Causeway — and the twenty named scenes are a kind of official catalogue of what the lake is supposed to make you feel, in each season and each weather.
This is what people mean when they call Hangzhou a literati city. Painting, sculpture, drama and music have all flourished here, partly because the province has been among the first developed in the modern era and has carried that openness through. The West Cold Seal Society, founded in 1904, is the oldest surviving literati society in China; the tomb of Li Shutong, who was both a great artist and a monk, sits above Tiger Spring; the Zhejiang Museum holds more than 100,000 objects from Hemudu onward.
Hangzhou's reputation rests on two things it does better than almost anywhere: scenery that changes with the light, and the habit of treating that scenery as something to be experienced rather than ticked off. The lake in rain, the lake at dusk, the lake under snow — the same water, three different poems. The tea hills are the second half of it, where the best green tea in the country is grown and where the correct activity is to sit for a whole afternoon.
The practical consequence for a visitor is that Hangzhou does not really have a must-see list. It has a set of things to do slowly — walk the causeways, take a boat, drink tea where it grows, eat the dishes Su Shi praised, and let the weather do the rest. Come in spring or autumn, give it three days rather than two, and it will outlast the photographs.
The questions visitors ask us most about Hangzhou, answered plainly.
Prices and practical details are reviewed every month by our Beijing team and updated the day a rule changes.
Spring and autumn, without question. From March the whole city leafs out and the flowers come in waves — cherry, peach, tulip, magnolia — and late September to November is clear, dry and scented with osmanthus. Summer is genuinely hard, one of China's old furnaces, and winter is wet and cold; the plum rain of early summer can run 40 days without a clear day. Come in spring or autumn and avoid the May Day and National Day holidays entirely.
Yes — West Lake and every one of its ten old and ten new scenes are free, as is the whole lakeside circuit, and so are the public toilets, which matters on a hot day. The charged sights are the exceptions: the Lingyin temple complex is ¥75 in two parts, the Xixi wetland ¥80, the Songcheng theme park ¥280, and the Impression West Lake show ¥200–600.
Walk it, or ride it. The lake is ringed by roads with bike lanes and there are hire points about every 300 m, seven in ten of them open 24 hours; better still, the public bike scheme's first hour is free, so return and re-hire every 59 minutes and a full day costs nothing. Four classic rides run from 10 km (the ecological route) to 25 km (the hills route). Tourist buses starting with Y also circle the lake.
They are two tickets for one visit. You cannot reach Lingyin temple without entering the Feilai Peak scenic area first, so the Feilai Peak ticket is ¥45 and the temple ticket is ¥30 on top, ¥75 in total. Feilai Peak is the limestone hill famous from the stories of the mad monk Ji Gong, covered in hundreds of Buddhist carvings — worth the extra hour even if you are not going into the temple.
In Longjing village if you can, and taste before you pay. The four genuine producing areas are Wengjia Mountain, Longjing village, Manjuelong and Yangmeiling; the tea from the eighteen imperial bushes below Lion Peak is the famous grade. In the village the tasting is free and the bargaining is real — you can usually take a third to a half off the asking price. Avoid the older women who approach you on the road offering to take you to the tea fields; they take a commission.
The classics, all in one place if you want: West Lake vinegar fish, Dongpo pork, Longjing prawns, and a bowl of West Lake water-shield soup. Dongpo pork is named for Su Shi, who is said to have cooked pork in cubes for the workers building the causeway; vinegar fish wants a fish starved for a day or two first and cooks in three or four minutes. For value, locals go to Xin Bailu or Grandmother's Home rather than the famous Lou Wailou, and the restaurant streets are Qingzhiwu, Shengli River and Gaoyin Street.
Yes, if you accept what winter is here. It is damp and cold rather than snowy, and the lake under a low grey sky is quiet and atmospheric; the one winter scene everyone names is Broken Bridge in Snow, one of the ten old scenes. The plum blossom at Chaoshan runs from mid-February to mid-March. Bring a real coat and expect to spend more time indoors, in teahouses and temples.
By air to Xiaoshan International (HGH), about an hour from the centre, with a ¥20 coach to the city every 15–30 minutes depending on the hour; or by high-speed rail, which is the better option from within the delta, with Ningbo, Shanghai, Suzhou and Nanjing all within a couple of hours. Inside the city, metro line 1 runs ¥2–8, buses ¥1–4, and the Y-prefixed tourist routes reach every sight.
Plan this trip
The same places, with a driver, an English-speaking guide and the tickets already bought.
Designed around the 240-hour visa-free transit window: three days that actually work with your flight times rather than against them.
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View tourFive regions, one journey: imperial north, panda country, the karst rivers of Guilin and the skyline of Shanghai, with Hangzhou's West Lake.
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Hangzhou
The causeways before the crowds, a boat to the island on the ¥1 note, and the hillside pagoda nobody climbs. The lake, done properly.
From US$109/per person
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Hangzhou
Thirty minutes uphill from West Lake, terraced bushes and families pan-firing the country's most famous green tea by hand.
From US$99/per person
View tour
Hangzhou
A 1,700-year-old monastery with Buddhist carvings cut into the cliff behind it, then the working southern end of China's imperial canal.
From US$95/per person
View tourCity guides
Dalian
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The Northern Pearl — China's most romantic coastal city.
Shenyang
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Where the Qing dynasty began — an imperial palace, a warlord's mansion and the cheapest good food in the northeast.
Changbai Mountain
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A volcano on the North Korean border, a jade-green crater lake at 2,189 m, and hot springs on the way down.
Kunming
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China's Spring City — a mild plateau capital of flowers, markets and the Stone Forest, with gulls on the lake in winter.
Dali
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A walled Bai town between a 4,000 m mountain and a great lake — wind, flowers, snow and moon, and life at a slower speed.
Shuhe
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The quiet version of Lijiang — a Tea Horse Road village of canals, stone bridges and slow afternoons, 4 km from the crowds.
Lijiang
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A UNESCO Naxi old town of canals and cobbles beneath a 5,596 m snow mountain — the cultural heart of north-west Yunnan.
Xiamen
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Gulangyu
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A car-free island of colonial villas, pianos and cats, twenty minutes off Xiamen — and the one place where the trick is simply to stay the night.
Fuzhou
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Lugu Lake
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Nanchang
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Hefei
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Hongcun
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A 900-year-old Hui village laid out as an ox, with water running to every door and a mirror-still crescent pond at its heart.
Wuhan
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Three towns, two rivers and the best breakfast in China — a huge, blunt river city of bridges, lakes and cheap, brilliant street food.
Changsha
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Fenghuang Ancient Town
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The stilt-house river town of Shen Congwen's 'Border Town' — glowing lanterns, stepping stones and the best two nights in western Hunan.
Lushan
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A cloud-wrapped granite mountain with a Victorian hill station on top, waterfalls in three tiers, and the mist that Su Shi said you could never see through.
Wuyuan
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China's 'most beautiful countryside' — dozens of white-walled Huizhou villages strung along streams and terraced into the hills, and two weeks a year of gold.
Mount Heng (Hengshan, Hunan)
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The South Great Peak: a pilgrimage mountain of 72 summits where the temples run all the way to the top, and the sunrise over the cloud sea is the whole point.
Huangshan
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Yellow Mountain: 82 granite peaks of twisted pines and grotesque rock, a sea of cloud that changes by the hour, and hot springs at the foot.
Wudang Mountain
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The Taoist first mountain of China — a gilded bronze hall on a 1,612 m summit, temples hung off cliff faces, and the birthplace of tai chi.
Luoyang
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Thirteen dynasties, 100,000 Buddhas carved into a river cliff, China's first Buddhist temple — and a whole city that turns peony-pink every April.
Yuntai Mountain
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A UNESCO geopark in Henan where red-stone gorges squeeze a river to a slot, a 314 m waterfall drops in one plunge, and every path leads to another pool.
Rizhao
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A low-key Shandong beach town where the sun rises straight out of the Yellow Sea, the sand runs 60 km and a seafood dinner costs less than a coffee in Shanghai.
Yantai
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A northern Shandong port of fairy-tale cliffs, wine cellars and long golden beaches — where emperors once hunted the elixir of life and China's wine industry still begins.
Lianyungang
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A working Jiangsu port with a myth in the middle of it — the Flower-Fruit Mountain of Journey to the West, a sea causeway to a big island beach, and some of the cheapest seafood on the coast.
Sanqing Mountain
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A vertical forest of granite pillars in Jiangxi — the Python Out of the Mountain, the Goddess of the East Sea, two cable cars and a cliff-hugging walkway at 1,660 metres.
Tianjin
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Beijing's port city next door — a river of 24 bridges, 2,000 colonial villas, and the best street breakfast in northern China.
Datong
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A frontier capital of carved Buddhas — the Yungang Grottoes, a temple pinned to a cliff, and the oldest wooden tower in China.
Taiyuan
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Shanxi's provincial capital and noodle heartland — the spring of Jinci, two Ming pagodas, and a museum that explains the whole province.
Pingyao
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China's best-preserved ancient walled town — a Ming wall, the first Chinese bank, and two temples of painted clay just outside the gates.
Wutai Mountain
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China's foremost Buddhist mountain — fifty-plus temples in one valley, crowned by five flat-topped peaks up to 3,058 m.
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China's finest grassland — a 263,000 km² sweep of steppe, birch forest and border river, best driven with the windows down.
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Beijing's 600-year imperial palace — 8,700 rooms behind a 72-hectare wall, and the largest surviving wooden palace complex on earth.
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China's only true winter-sun coast — four very different bays, a coral island and a 108 m sea Buddha, all at 18° north.
Haikou
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Hainan's capital is the island's living city — 600-year-old arcade streets, a volcanic village, and a morning-tea-to-midnight food culture.
Beihai
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24 km of fine white sand on one side, a volcanic island of coral and lava on the other — plus a 19th-century arcade old street in between.
Nanning
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Guangxi
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One autonomous region, a dozen landscapes — limestone peaks and rice terraces in the north, a Vietnam border and a warm gulf coast in the south.
Huizhou
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A free West Lake, a Taoist mountain and 200 km of white-sand coast — the Pearl River Delta's most underrated weekend.
Beidaihe
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Northern China's classic beach escape — one sunrise headland, 10 km of calm swimming water, and a bird flyway overhead twice a year.
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The biggest freshwater lake on the North China Plain — and almost none of it can be reached except by boat.
Qinhuangdao
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126 km of Bohai coast in one municipality — a working port, two famous resorts, and the only desert dunes that meet this sea.
Yesanpo
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Zhuhai
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Nine bends of clear water, red sandstone cliffs, and the tea that made a mountain's name.
Jiuzhaigou
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108 mineral-blue lakes in one 55 km valley — the place that ruins water everywhere else for you.
Mount Siguniang
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Four snow peaks, three valleys, and the friendliest 5,000 m mountain in China to stand on top of.
Hailuogou
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Daocheng Yading
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Three 6,000 m sacred peaks, glacial lakes at 4,600 m and twenty hours of road — the hardest, highest payoff in Sichuan.
Shunan Bamboo Sea
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Seventy thousand mu of bamboo over twenty-eight hills, a red sandstone corridor under a closed green roof, and a banquet made entirely of bamboo.
Dujiangyan
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Not a monument but a machine: three pieces of engineering with no dam, still doing their job after 2,270 years.
Qingcheng Mountain
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The mountain where Daoism was organised, and the one Chengdu escapes to when the basin turns into an oven.
Qingdao
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Red-tiled roofs, cold beer and a granite mountain that walks straight into the sea — the easiest good time on the Yellow Sea.
Mount Tai
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1,545 metres, 6,290 stone steps and three thousand years of emperors — the one mountain in China that is also a document.
Jinan
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A provincial capital with 700 springs under the pavement — people still queue at the spouts to fill their kettles.
Weihai
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1,000 km of clean coast, a free bathing beach, the island where the Beiyang Fleet died — and thousands of wild swans every winter.
Qufu
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One family, two thousand years of steles, and a ¥150 pass that covers the lot — the easiest serious day trip in Shandong.
Penglai
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China's immortals' coast — a Song-dynasty naval harbour you can walk for free, a mythology nobody ever found, and the ferry to 32 islands.
Changdao
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32 islands, one causeway, a ¥150 land pass, tens of thousands of gulls and nowhere you can drive — the place where everything happens by boat.
Nanjing
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Capital of six dynasties, capital of the Republic, and the city that eats more duck than anywhere else on earth.
Suzhou
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Two thousand five hundred years of canals, sixty surviving gardens, and a city that shuts its gates at half past five.
Zhouzhuang
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Nine hundred years, fourteen bridges, one ticket — and a town that only makes sense before eight in the morning.
Tongli
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Fifteen canals, seven islets, forty-nine bridges — and a town that still gets up at dawn because it lives here.
Wuxi
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Taihu on one side, a Grand Buddha on the next hill, and ribs sweet enough to argue about — the most underrated city on the Yangtze delta.
Yangzhou
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A city built by salt merchants who had more money than restraint — gardens, a narrow lake, and the best breakfast in China.
Zhenjiang
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Three hills, one ferry landing, and an unreasonable share of Chinese literature — the Yangtze city people drive past.
Changzhou
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A 2,500-year-old canal city that built a dinosaur park and refuses to apologise for it.
Wuzhen
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A town that is two towns: the older, quieter East Zone and the lit-up West Zone you sleep inside.
Xitang
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Nine canals, 122 lanes, one long roofed corridor — and a town that still works for a living.
Xixi Wetland
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Ten square kilometres of marsh inside Hangzhou, and the only way into half of it is a boat.
Ningbo
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A 7,000-year-old port with Asia's oldest private library, a free waterfront 20 years older than Shanghai's, and the best seafood before the islands.
Mount Putuo
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A Buddhist island with no cars, three great temples and a ¥10 lunch that is the point of the place.
Qiandao Lake
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A thousand islands that did not exist sixty years ago, and the cleanest big-lake water in China.
Shaoxing
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Two and a half thousand years of water-town China, and Lu Xun's house is free.
Zhoushan
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1,390 islands, one road bridge in, and a harbour that lands more fish than almost anywhere on earth.
Hengdian
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A backlot the size of a town, where the palaces are copies and the film crews are real.
Yandang Mountain
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A volcano that weathering turned into scenery — 500-odd sights of peak, cave and waterfall across eight scenic areas.
Zhejiang
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One small, mountainous, absurdly rich province that holds a lake, two canal towns, a Buddhist island and a dead volcano.
Hong Kong Outlying Islands
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Two hundred-odd islands, half an hour of ferry from the financial district, and not a car on three of them.
Hong Kong Shopping
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A duty-free port where the tag starts lower, two citywide sale seasons knock a third off, and every mall sits on an MTR exit.
Macao
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Four hundred years of Portuguese streets, a fake Venice under a painted sky, and the best egg tart in Asia.
Urumqi
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The city furthest from the sea, with a snow range on its doorstep and dinner starting at nine.
Hong Kong SAR, China
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A harbour skyline you already know by heart, dim sum trolleys at dawn, and 260 islands an hour from the neon.
Taiwan, China
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Night-market alleys, high-mountain railways, and a coastline that changes character every hundred kilometres.
Qinghai Lake
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A 4,400 sq km inland sea at 3,200 m, ringed by rapeseed gold, prayer flags and the best cycling road in China.
Mount Emei
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A 3,099-metre Buddhist summit you can reach by cable car before lunch — and a mountain full of monkeys that will absolutely rob you.
Beijing
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Six centuries of imperial red walls, a Great Wall you can climb before lunch, and the best roast duck on earth.
Taipei
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A 24-hour bookstore, a night market that never stops sizzling, and a city that apologises when you bump into it.
North Xinjiang
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Alpine lakes the colour of poured enamel, a village of log cabins under birch trees, and the last tear the Atlantic ever sheds.
Lanzhou
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A city split in half by the Yellow River, where beef noodles are a breakfast ritual and the Silk Road still runs through the streets.
Mount Hua
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Five granite peaks, one plank road bolted to a cliff face, and a sunrise that justifies the 2am start.
Dunhuang
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A desert oasis where Buddhist cave art survived a thousand years and a crescent lake refused to dry up.
Gannan
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433 kilometres of the Yellow River's first bend, a 3.5 km prayer-wheel circuit, and Tibetan grasslands almost nobody has commercialised yet.
Sichuan–Tibet Highway
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2,142 kilometres of cliff-edge switchbacks, four of China's most beautiful mountains, and a road the Tibetans walk on their knees.
Kangding
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The town that gave Asia its most famous love song, a 7,556m sacred peak on its doorstep, and the last real Tibetan town before the road climbs to Lhasa.
Lhasa
City guide · 12 tours
A city of prayer wheels and butter lamps at 3,700 metres, where the sun shines 3,000 hours a year and the world's highest palace watches over it all.
Nyingchi
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Tibet's greenest corner — peach blossom valleys, a 7,782 m peak that hides from almost everyone, and the world's deepest canyon.
Namtso
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A 1,920-square-kilometre sheet of impossible blue at 4,718 metres, ringed by snow peaks and prayer flags.
Chongqing
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A vertical city of fog, cable cars and cliff-side stilt houses, where the火锅 never stops boiling and the night skyline outshines Hong Kong.
Qiandongnan
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A thousand Miao households stacked up a mountainside, drum towers and wind-rain bridges in Dong villages, and a 600-year-old Ming garrison town on the road to Guiyang.
Libo
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Emerald rivers threading through karst peaks, a 600-metre forest growing out of a riverbed, and China's largest wild plum grove.
Guiyang
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China's summer capital at 1,100 metres, where the nights run on sour fish soup, street-side barbecue and mahjong that never quite stops.
Zhenyuan
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A 2,000-year-old river town where the Wuyang River carves an S through the mountains and every lane hides a story.
Huangguoshu
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Asia's biggest waterfall, and the only one on earth you can walk behind, above and around — plus 600-year-old Ming dynasty villages a short drive away.
Harbin
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Minus 30 degrees, a frozen river you can walk across, and a cathedral built by Russians who never went home.
Yunnan
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Snow mountains, tropical rainforest, twenty-five minorities and a plate of rice noodles — all in one province.
Shanghai
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A 1920s waterfront of colonial banks facing a science-fiction skyline, soup dumplings you eat with a straw, and 20 million people moving like clockwork.
Zhangjiajie
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Three thousand sandstone pillars straight out of Avatar, a glass skywalk bolted to a cliff, and a cable car that leaves from downtown.
Guangzhou
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A 2,200-year-old trading port where dim sum is a religion, colonial islands sit beside 600-metre towers, and the food never stops.
Guilin
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Karst peaks rising straight out of a green river, rice terraces carved into mountainsides, and the best bowl of noodles you'll eat in China.
Shenzhen
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A fishing village that became a megacity in forty years — and it still has 500-year-old banyans, empty beaches and dim sum worth the border crossing.
Chengdu
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A 3,000-year-old city where the schedule is tea, mahjong and hotpot — and the pandas are just the opening act.
Xinjiang
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Snow peaks, grassland, desert and oasis — one-sixth of China, and the longest road you will ever ride.
Xi'an
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Thirteen dynasties of emperors, a terracotta army buried for 2,200 years, and a walled city you can cycle in 100 minutes.
Qinghai
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China's high-altitude blue heart: a salt lake you can walk on, a 3,200-metre sea, and yak butter tea at the roof of the world.
Tibet
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A plateau the size of Western Europe where the sky starts at your feet, prayer flags carry the wind, and the roads run past 8,000-metre peaks.
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