Xihu Lake

Xihu Lake is the main attraction of Hangzhou. A sandbank turned a bay at the mouth of the Qiantangjiang River into a freshwater lake 12,000 years ago, and it has become famous throughout the country. The shores fringed with grasslands, waterfronts, teahouses, pagodas, ships and boats, islands, lotus blossoms – all framed by gentle hills. With an average depth of 2.3 meters and an area of 6.5 square kilometers, Xihu Lake offers guests countless landscape beauties and many ways to enjoy them.

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General Information

It’s not just about traveling by water. In the city itself and beyond, there are shady promenades lined with open electric cars, blessed and silent transportation for the elderly and tired; it’s especially good to take a ride in the summer heat. Secondly, one can find solace in the coastal parks with teahouses, restaurants, cafes. And third, influential and not short of imagination fans of the lake have long ago built two dams in the water, thanks to which it can not be confused with any other and which are reproduced in the imperial lakes in Beijing and Chengde.

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The best way to experience Xihu Lake is to ride around it in a gondola: it’s quieter, slower and without the roar of engines. The gondola seats up to six passengers and is well protected from the sun and rain by a simple canopy. Less pleasant are trips on paddle and motor boats, and large excursion steamers deprive the trip of any romance, in addition, the ships are almost always full, and someone will have to be satisfied with only fragments of the lake landscape, barely visible from behind the heads of other passengers. In principle, it is advisable to take a trip in the early evening, as at this time there is no pandemonium on the water and islands and the lighting is much better than at noon.

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Baidi Dam

The shorter and narrower of the two embankments, designed as an avenue of weeping willows, leads from the northern end of the city’s waterfront to Gushan Island. Its name comes from the poem of the poet Bail Juyi, who sang it back in the IX century. Two gaps allow the passage of small boats, over the one on the eastern edge of the bridge, called Turning point. Already in ancient China this strange name gave rise to many attempts at interpretation. The simplest and historically justified interpretation is that it means the bridge over the fracture, for here the land ends and the causeway begins. In the northwest can be seen a tall slender pagoda Baochuta 45 meters high. The only natural island in Xihu Lake, Gushan, is mostly arranged as a park. Its top is crowned by a gazebo. On the southern shore there are many tea houses and restaurants, with a provincial museum lost between them. The panorama is famous: an autumn moon over a quiet lake, observed from a terrace at the eastern end of the island. This is one of the ten famous views of Lake Xihu; to enjoy it to its fullest, one must arrive at the “right” time – in this case, in the fall with no wind and moonlight. Moving further west, after the museum you will pass the Louwailou Restaurant, the city’s most famous restaurant, and see a classical-style building, the homestead of the tradition-rich Xilin Seal Carvers’ Society. On the west bank, just before the bridge leading from the island to land, on the left of the street is the grave of revolutionary and champion of women’s equality Qiu Jin (1875-1907), with a white tombstone statue of this brave woman executed as a rebel. It is true that her remains were not moved to this site until 1981

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Provincial Museum

The Provincial Museum in Hangzhou (Gushan Lu 25) contains many unique exhibits, the names of which are also given in English. You can see archaeological finds from prehistoric culture, ceramics, coins, works of arts and crafts, paintings and calligraphy, as well as exhibits characterizing the recent history of the city. The museum includes an art gallery (Zhejiang Xihu Meishuguan) with a separate entrance. This building, opened in 1999, exhibits mainly artworks of the 20th and 21st centuries. 11On the other side, to the west of the main museum buildings, stands one of the four imperial libraries of China, built in 1782 especially for a single copy of the compendium of texts of the “Siku Quanypu”. Opening hours: Tues.-Fri. 8.45-16.30, Mon. 12.00-16.30. Entrance until 16.00

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Yue Fei Mausoleum

After crossing the bridge and enjoying the view of lotuses and lilies (if you’re visiting in summer), turn left and walk 300m along the right-hand path to the memorial temple and tomb of Yue Fei (1103-1142). While this warlord was risking his life to defend the Song Empire against the Jurchens who had conquered Northern China, his enemies at court were scheming against him. Yue fell into disfavor. Yue Fei’s execution on the denunciation of a traitor to his homeland made him the first national hero in China. His statue in the main hall was created in 1979. The side hall honors the hero’s parents. His tomb, along with a stone-carved guardhouse, is on the left side of the side hall (to the left of Yue Fei’s mound is his son’s mound), and there you can see the kneeling traitor and his wife, as well as his two accomplices. Many generations of Chinese have spit on the cast-iron figures of the villains as they pass by. Opening hours: daily. 7.00-18.00.

Sudi Dam

The longer of the two dams on Lake Xihu, branching off in front of Yue Fei Temple, was named after its builder Su Dongpo (1036-1101) and the creator of one of ancient China’s most celebrated poets. He was a member of the Hangzhou City Council and ordered the embankment of this causeway in 1089. The 2.8 km long path leads over six bridges; near the end of the causeway on the right is the beautiful “Huagangguanyu Park.”

Huagangguanyu Park

The Bay of Flowers Park, a culmination of landscape architecture on the southern edge of Sudi Dam, a curious mix of elements of Chinese and English garden architecture, is a multitude of water and tea house views of ten celebrated panoramas of Lake Xihu. One of them is called “Fish Watching”, and indeed – there are numerous carp swimming here. Opening hours: daily. 6.00-18.00.

Laifinta Pagoda

On the southern shore of Lake Sihu, it’s impossible to pass by the pompous Leifinta Pagoda, built in 2002. Behind the glass on its plinth you can see the foundations of an earlier structure that collapsed in 1924. It in turn plays an important role in the most famous of the legends associated with Lake Sihu, the White Snake. It is the love story of a young schoolboy and the spirit of a snake, who, through exercises lasting several hundred years, managed to take the form of a beautiful woman. One monk, who considered this relationship unnatural, managed to imprison the snake under the Leifinta Pagoda through sorcery with the words: “Until the pagoda collapses and the lake dries up”, which meant, of course, until the end of time. But legend has it that many years later the miracle was actually accomplished. Thus, the historically accurate collapse of the pagoda was foreseen. In the new pagoda, the legend of the snake is vividly represented in the form of extremely skillful carved decorations. Opening hours: daily. 7.30-21.00.

Xiaozhou Island

The most famous of the artificial islands in Lake Xihu is named after a legendary island in the world’s oceans where immortals supposedly live. Thus we enter a kind of paradise country. It is indeed unusual, consisting mostly of ponds covered with lotuses and lilies. Narrow, partly tree-covered dikes separate the ponds from each other and from the rest of the lake. Wherever one wanders here in search of amusement, one always sees water and aquatic plants on both sides. Just south of the south shore, three stone lanterns peek out of the lake, titled: “Three bodies of water reflect the moon”. This is one of the ten famous views of Xihu Lake, but can only be enjoyed with the lanterns lit, in the moonlight and only after the Mid-Autumn Festival. You can take the ferry from the city’s waterfront to Jiefang Lu Street.

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