My Trip To China: Hangzhou

Hangzhou (杭州) is the capital of Zhejiang province and is famous for its beautiful natural scenery, with the West Lake (Xī Hú, 西湖) as the most well-known location in China.

The city was a capital of the Southern Song Dynasty in 12th century.

The Venetian Marco Polo visited Hangzhou in the late 13th century and in his book he refers to the city as "beyond dispute the finest and the noblest in the world."

We stayed there for few days in November 2008 and we definitely are going back there again maybe sometime during summer. The city is so beautiful with its all historic relics and of course eye-catching nature.

Hangzhou is a great mystic place for holidays and people there are so honest and friendly. Both my husband and I were very pleased to stay there.

One of Hangzhou's most popular sights is West Lake which we saw on the first day. The lake covers an area of 6 square kilometers and includes some of Hangzhou's most famous historic and scenic places. We climbed hills around the lake but probably we should visit famous Buddhist temples instead like everyone else was doing. Anyway I didn’t regret that decision as we had great time.

West Lake in Hangzhou

Somewhere around the lake...

We of course went to Old China Street on He Fang Street where there are a lot of old style shops offering various kinds of souvenirs including silk and famous Longjing Tea. We bought some tea there as a gift for our relatives but later on some local people told us that we can buy better longjing tea in a local market from farmers as the one we bought already is only for tourists. Well, it is typical but at least we found out soon enough to buy good tea :)

Tea shop in Hangzhou

On He Fang Street in Hangzhou

The other place worth to see in Hangzhou is Xixi National Wetland Park located at the west part of the city. XiXi Wetland has a history of more than 1,800 years.

The park is densely crisscrossed with many watercourses, among which there are various ponds and lakes. We spent there whole day and we also took a boat there which was very interesting experience for us. The park itself is divided into few parts which most of them are for free. It is worth to take binoculars as there are many birds to see!