Hangzhou day trip from Shanghai: West Lake, tea villages and Lingyin Temple

Hangzhou is Suzhou’s grander sibling: a lake the Chinese have painted and written poems about for more than a thousand years, tea terraces in the hills behind it, and one of the country’s great Buddhist temples in a wooded valley. It is a longer day than Suzhou but a fuller one, and the alternative day trip in our Shanghai essentials tour. Marco Polo called it the finest and noblest city in the world. He had not seen Melbourne, but he had a point.

Getting there, and the Hangzhou East problem

High-speed trains run from Shanghai Hongqiao to Hangzhou East in 45 to 60 minutes, roughly every ten minutes from early morning. Book a day or two ahead under your passport (the train guide explains how); second class is fine for an hour.

The catch is that Hangzhou East is a long way from the lake: 30 to 40 minutes by taxi or metro (line 1 to Longxiangqiao for the east shore). Build that into both ends of the day. A private car from Shanghai takes two to two and a half hours each way, which only beats the train if you want to stop at a tea village on the way back or you are travelling with small children and a lot of gear.

West Lake: walk one side, boat the other

West Lake is big, about 15 kilometres around, with causeways dividing it into sections, islands in the middle, and pagodas on the hills. Do not try to walk the whole circuit; it is a six-hour slog. The plan that works:

1. Start at Broken Bridge on the north shore at 8 am, before the tour groups, and walk west along the Bai Causeway toward Solitary Hill, with the lake on both sides and the hills behind.
2. Take a boat from the north or west shore to Xiaoying Island (the “Three Pools Mirroring the Moon”, the view on the back of the one-yuan note), walk its zigzag bridges, and continue by boat to the south shore.
3. Walk the Su Causeway south, nearly three kilometres of willows, lotus beds and six stone bridges, to Leifeng Pagoda, which you can climb (there is an escalator for the first stretch) for the view back across the water to the city.

That is two and a half to three hours and covers the lake’s best angles. In spring the causeways are pink with peach blossom; in autumn the hills turn and the osmanthus scent is everywhere. In July and August do the lake by 10 am and retreat to the hills.

The tea hills: Longjing

Longjing (Dragon Well) green tea is grown on terraced hills a 20-minute drive south-west of the lake, and the villages among the terraces are the best lunch stop in the region. Meijiawu is the most visited and set up for it; Longjing village itself is smaller and closer to the lake; Yangmeiling is quieter. A short walk between tea fields leads to farmhouses that serve tea, lunch and, in April, the new season’s first picking.

Buy tea from a farmhouse you have sat down in, not from a shop near the lake, and expect to pay for quality: “pre-Qingming” tea picked before early April is the most prized and priced accordingly, and the farmer will brew it for you in a glass so you can watch the leaves stand up. The China National Tea Museum nearby is free, well done, and good for an hour if the weather turns.

Lingyin Temple and Feilai Feng

Lingyin (“Temple of the Soul’s Retreat”) is one of China’s largest and oldest Buddhist temples, founded in the fourth century and set in a wooded valley a short drive from the tea hills. The entrance park, Feilai Feng (“the peak that flew here”), has more than three hundred Buddhist carvings cut into the limestone cliffs along a stream, including a famous laughing Buddha; the temple halls climb the hill behind in a series of courtyards, each hall bigger than the last, ending with a hall of five hundred carved arhats.

Allow 90 minutes. It is a working temple, so dress modestly (covered shoulders, no very short shorts), keep voices down in the halls, and do not photograph people praying. The park ticket and the temple ticket are separate; a guide handles both.

What to eat

Hangzhou has its own cuisine, lighter and sweeter than Shanghai’s, with freshwater fish and tea in the dishes. Order:

• Dongpo pork, a square of braised belly named after the poet who governed the city.
• West Lake fish in vinegar sauce, the local signature; sweet-sour, and better than it sounds.
• Beggar’s chicken, baked in lotus leaves and clay; order it ahead at a good restaurant.
• Longjing shrimp, river shrimp stir-fried with tea leaves, delicate and the dish to try once.
• Pian’er chuan noodles, with pickled greens and pork, for a cheap lunch.

The famous old restaurant on the lake is Lou Wai Lou, busy and honest; lunch at a tea-village farmhouse is often the better meal and the better memory.

A sample day

Expect 12 to 15 kilometres on foot. With a private car the order can flip (temple first, lake in the afternoon light) and the tea village becomes a late-afternoon stop on the way home to Shanghai.

Hangzhou or Suzhou?

If you have one day: Suzhou for gardens, canals and the shorter journey, especially with children; Hangzhou for scenery, tea and a temple, and for anyone who likes to walk. If you have two days, do both; they are nothing alike. Our guides run both regularly and can add either to a day guide booking with a private car, which also solves the Hangzhou East transfer.

Practical notes

• Crowds. Hangzhou is a domestic holiday favourite. Avoid the first week of October, Chinese New Year and the May Day holiday, when the causeways are shoulder to shoulder; the best time to visit guide has the dates.
• Weather. April to May and late September to November are the months. Summer is hot and humid; winter is grey but the lake in light snow is a famous sight.
• Payment. Boats, temple tickets, tea houses and the museum all take Alipay; set it up before you fly.
• Staying over. If you can spare a night, a hotel on the west or south shore turns the day trip into an evening walk on an empty causeway and a dawn lake, which is when it is most beautiful. Ask us; we add it to the four-day tour on request.