Hangzhou West Lake

The most beautiful spots for a 1 day tour…

Hangzhou is the capital of Zhejiang province, located about 2 hours south west from Shanghai. It is located in the Yangtze River delta.

Tour overview

Our tour around west lake.
Red = Walking, Purple = by car, blue = by bicycle

Our first full day in Hangzhou was dedicated to the West lake and surroundings. I am going to refer to the spots with the numbers indicated on the map, so it is easier for you to understand which pictures belong to which area.

You can walk around the lake, but it will take you a while. It is a probably a day trip and takes some hiking. We took a DiDi for some areas that are too far to walk and where there was not really anything too interesting to see.

It is also really easy to rent bikes (by WeChat or Alipay) so whenever we found a bike, we used it 🙂 Unfortunately, the way from (6) to (7) does not permit bikes, so we had to walk. There are however, “hop-on” electric vehicles (think of a bigger golf cart for about 12 people) which circle the entire lake. The fee is reasonable (20 RMB per person).

QingHeFang Pedestrian Area (1-2)

We started in this area (1)-(2). It is a small network of ancient streets with nice shops. We strolled around a bit and you can get a lot of touristy stuff. There are of course also restaurants, cafes, tea-houses and a Starbucks.

There were not too many tourist there as we visited on a Monday. The area is not too big, you can cover all the small streets within 1-2 hours easily.

WuShan Mountain (3)

Further south from the QingHeFang area, there is a hill called WuShan. There are several Temples (or probably Fortresses) on the hilltops and you can overlook the west lake. The whole area is covered with woods and you feel fully immersed in nature.

The entrance fee to the areas with the building was 30 RMB per person. In the tower, there were 2 levels of a museum, but most of the things were only described in Chinese language. It showed the history of the city and the area.

After seeing all those nice buildings, we had to take a small hike (30-45 minutes) up to the top of the hill and then down on the other side (4)

West Lake

Hangzhou is famous for its beautiful West Lake. It is supposed to be one of the most gorgeous lakes in China.

After ending up at a road (4) we took a taxi to get to the Leifeng Pagoda, however, on the way we saw a very nice area with hundreds of people, so we stopped there (5). Since the Pagoda and lake are visible in the background, it is a famous spot for newly married to take pictures there.

We stopped here (5), it seemed to be one of the top photo spots

At this place, there were also electric boats for hire, which we took. The price is 60 RMB for one hour, but the area where you can drive is quite limited, so 30 minutes is totally enough.

We continued on bicycle, although it was not very easy to get one at this busy place. Moving to (6) the road got incredibly busy, even the bicycle lane was completely crowded. You had to pay really good attention because there were so many people.

Our initial idea was to cycle along the “dam” (6-7) but unfortunately, bikes were prohibited in this area. So we went on foot. Again, there were so many people, it was crazy. And this during “non-vacation times”! We could only imagine how busy the place must be during vacation time or national holidays.

About half way on the “dam” we took an electric “bus” since we did not feel too much like walking anymore. At the end of the dam, there was an incredible area, full of blossoming trees, small bridges and small buildings.

After we fully traversed the lake, we found a very nice Starbucks (7), where we got a coffee, unfortunately, already at 3pm all the cakes had been sold out.

After our stop at Starbucks, we went further on the peninsula on foot up to (8). This is again a very nice area, with some small restaurants and tea house but it was so busy so we decided to take a rest and get some lunch/dinner somewhere.

QingZhiWu Area (10) and Botanical Garden (11)

We looked up a nice Mexican restaurant nearby (Meha Mohar) where we got some great Fajitas.

After that, more by coincidence than planned, we wandered around the area and realized that this is a really nice part of town. There were so many small cafes, bars and restaurant as well as really tiny streets (it felt like in any village in Germany) that we enjoyed greatly walking around there. After a while, we entered a nice “park” which turned out to be the botanical garden. As it was already 17:00, the garden was normally closed, but the guard let us in anyways.