The hook
The lake that a thousand years of Chinese poets and painters agreed was the loveliest in the country: willow causeways, arched bridges, and pagodas laid out around still water, an hour's train from Shanghai.
01Why it's worth it
West Lake is the model "Jiangnan" landscape, and it has been deliberately composed as scenery for over a millennium, its causeways (Su and Bai, named for the poet-officials who built them), its "ten scenes" pegged to particular views in particular weather, its temples and the leaning Leifeng Pagoda. UNESCO listed it not as wild nature but as a cultural landscape that shaped garden design across East Asia. The city of Hangzhou around it is prosperous and green, famous for Longjing (Dragon Well) tea grown on the hills just west of the water, where you can walk terraced plantations and drink it at the source. It is beloved and therefore busy, weekends and holidays bring big domestic crowds, so the reward goes to whoever comes early or off-season and takes it slow on foot or by bike.
02How to experience it
Rent a bike or simply walk the causeways at dawn, when the lake is misty and quiet, and take the small ferry to the islands. Climb Leifeng Pagoda for the overview, then escape uphill into the Longjing tea villages to walk the terraces and drink the tea where it's grown. Come spring or autumn, and avoid national holidays.
From the locals
Travellers who base in nearby Shanghai are steered firmly out to it: "consider hitting Hangzhou as well as Suzhou," one wrote, "both are within an hour's train trip of Shanghai and are, imo, much more interesting to visit than Shanghai itself."