Hangzhou and the West Lake: China's Argument for Doing Almost Nothing

A city that has always prized leisure

Hangzhou has been China's favourite excuse to slow down for the better part of a millennium. Marco Polo called it the finest and most splendid city in the world, and the praise was less about its buildings than its temperament — a place where the scenery was treated as a public good and the afternoon as a resource to be spent well. The West Lake, a shallow bend of water framed by hills, has done the work of a landmark and a philosophy at once.

Unlike the monuments of the north, Hangzhou offers no single thing you must see. It offers a mood, and the mood is unhurried. For a traveller arriving from Shanghai's velocity, the drop in tempo is the attraction.

The West Lake, taken slowly

The mistake is to treat the lake as a checklist. It is better as a wander: along the causeway that divides the water, past the pagodas that punctuate the shore, to a bench where the light does the entertaining. A rented boat with a rower moves at the speed of conversation, and the famous sunrises and the misted evenings are worth setting an alarm for. The lake is small enough to know and large enough to keep surprising you.

• Walk the Su and Bai causeways; each is a slow hour with a view
• A rowed boat at dawn beats the midday circuit every time
• The Leifeng Pagoda at dusk and the misted mornings are the keepers
• Tea houses line the northern shore — sit, don't tour

Longjing and the hills that grow it

Behind the lake rise the hills of Longjing, where the green tea of the same name has been picked and pan-fired for centuries. A morning among the terraces — a village, a tasting, a walk between the bushes — is the part of Hangzhou most visitors remember but few plan for. The tea is delicate, the villages are old, and the distance from the lake is measured in minutes, not miles.

The lesson of Longjing is the lesson of the whole city: the best of Hangzhou is close, quiet and best taken without a schedule. You do not conquer it. You sit in it.

Close enough to skip, worth the stop

Hangzhou sits under an hour from Shanghai on the high-speed line, which makes it the easiest extra on any eastern China route — and, for many, the most restorative. It is the kind of day that follows a loud city with a quiet one, and the contrast is the point. Pair the West Lake with the Longjing hills and you have a full, unhurried day that asks almost nothing of you.

The point of doing little

There is a Chinese saying Hangzhou has borrowed for a thousand years: above is paradise, below are Suzhou and Hangzhou. The line is less a boast than an invitation to compare the city to heaven and find it not wanting. For a visitor, the takeaway is simpler. Some stops on a China trip are for seeing; Hangzhou is for being. Build the rail spine, add the lake, and let one day do almost nothing.

Our journey designers can place Hangzhou where it works best — after Shanghai, before the next loud city — and shape the day around the lake and the hills rather than the clock.