How To Make the Best Day on West Lake

While in Hangzhou I suggest dedicating one full day to the West Lake, but good planning will help, also rational use of legs, to save energy to the end of the day. One thing to make very clear: You Will Never Be Left Alone around West Lake.

Best you start West Lake day from the Leifeng Tower, please get the taxi. There are elevators approaching the tower and lift inside, so you can save some energy for the lake walks. Get some photos from the top. Great views to see your full day destinations. As you walk down the stairs please do stop by the 2nd floor, really impressive wood carving linked to Legend of the White Snake, do some reading before please.

After Leifeng Tower best is to exit to the West, walking clockwise around the lake and get into Su Causeway. On this Causeway you can buy West Lake Cruise tickets for Three Pools Mirroring the Moon Island. We decided to stop by the island and then continue on the boat towards the city centre for lunch. There is a queue to get into the boats, but it goes quick. Best is o get to open air back to make good photos.

Once you get into the island, which is main stopover for most of the boats, I suggest take left, clockwise to picture One RMB banknote view (west side of island). Please don’t forget to take a banknote, otherwise be ready to chase others to borrow. Actually we could not find the precise angle for the photo to match the banknote view. I suppose it needs to be taken from the water on the boat. Anyway, do around the island walk to enjoy famous Three Pools Mirroring the Moon. And don’t be shy to ask people in-charge for boat boarding, whether you get into the right queue to get into mainland in the downtown. For simplicity we used the same boarding place, where we landed to the island, and it got us into the city centre/downtown called District 77.

District 77 is a great place to have some rest, find a proper food and wonder around for a bit of shopping. For lunch we went for Tomacado. This is a very romantic birthday-Instagram-place, so you get both the food and the mood.

For day closing we went to Impression West Lake, for night show performance. I recommend you buy the tickets in the morning online, in the hotel. Please ask concierge to help as Wechat app requires Chinese ID. No major difference for VIP vs. normal seats, just get an upper end. I also suggest you take a first show for return. For the show itself, it is impressive as it happens right-in-the-lake, with really big number of people performing, coupled up with an excellent light show, enjoy!

One more point about commuting to the night show - I suggest you take a taxi from downtown and drive back afterwards. Didi does not allow calling the taxi around this place, so just enjoy nice one hour romantic walk by the lake, you can also walk back through Gushan Park.

Hope some advises will help you and you will enjoy your West Lake Day, as we did ;)

#westlake #planyourtrip

Post by Victor RU | May 21, 2023