Itinerary

Hangzhou's days want a sequence, not a pile. The lake takes a full day or two halves. Lingyin takes the opening of a morning. A tea village or Xixi takes the day you still have left, and only one of them. Two days are lake and temple. Three days add the village or the wetland. Four days slow the lake on purpose. Nothing in that pattern asks you to see the western hills, the boardwalks, and a water town before dinner on the day you arrive.

Pick a length before you pick sights

Count nights in a lakeside hotel, then subtract the hours eaten by Hangzhou East or Xiaoshan. A 21:00 arrival is not a lake day. A 7:40 train out is not a temple morning. What remains is the length you actually have.

Choose two days if this is a first look and you are content with the shore and Lingyin. Choose three if you care about Longjing, or if you want a green half day that is not more lake. Choose four if you want a dawn with nothing scheduled after it, or if the dates are in summer and the middle of each day will be a rest whether you planned it or not. The reasoning behind those lengths, and the map of lake versus hills versus wetland, is the Hangzhou hub. This page is the clock.

Do not start from a list of names and then discover it needs six mornings. Broken Bridge, Leifeng, Three Pools, Lingyin, Feilai Feng, Longjing, Meijiawu, Xixi, Hefang, and Wuzhen are not nine tasks. Several are the same walk. One is an hour. One is outside the city. Write the days below into the trip, then add a name only if a day still has an empty half that matches it.

If you are pairing the city with Suzhou, do that pairing with extra nights, not by shortening these days. The note at the end of this page is the whole of that advice. The days below assume you wake up in Hangzhou.

Two days: the lake, then the temple

Day one is West Lake. Be at Broken Bridge between 7:30 and 8:00. Walk Bai Causeway to Solitary Hill and give that north end until about 10:00 or 10:30. If the sky is clear and the group is willing, add Baoshi Hill before lunch and skip it if anyone is already done. Lunch on the north shore, finished by about 12:30. In the afternoon take Su Causeway south on foot or by bike, pause at Flower Harbor, and be at Leifeng Pagoda for the later light. A single boat, either to cross late morning or as a short loop, fits. A landing at Three Pools Mirroring the Moon fits only if you have checked the current entry rules for the lake islands and the pier is not a queue. Dinner near the hotel. The evening is short on purpose, because day two starts early. A lit stretch of causeway for twenty minutes is enough. Save Hefang Street for another night.

Day two is Lingyin, then the shore you slighted. Leave the hotel so you arrive as the gate opens. Grottoes first, halls next, shoulders and knees covered, and you are leaving by late morning. Check the current entry rules for Lingyin that morning. Lunch on the west side or back toward the water. The afternoon is lake time, not a new district: the south parks and Leifeng if day one was shortened, or a west-shore hour on Yanggong Causeway and a boat if day one already included Leifeng. You are back by late afternoon. Two days do not include a real tea-village walk and do not include Xixi. A shop on the promenade is not Longjing.

That pair is complete. People feel they have "missed the tea" and try to insert Meijiawu at 16:00 on day two. You will get a lane in flat light and a sales room, and you will give up the south shore to do it. On two days, let the tea go. The West Lake and Lingyin and Longjing pages hold the detail of each half. Follow their clocks rather than inventing a third half.

If day one was only an evening arrival, you do not have this two-day shape. You have a fragment plus one full day. Use the full day for the north shore in the morning and Lingyin only if you can still reach it at opening, which you cannot if the morning was the north shore. In that case choose. Either the lake, properly, or the temple at opening and a short shore after lunch. A late inbound is the trip to extend, not the trip to compress.

Day one around the shore

The first full day should be slightly boring on paper. Boring means it is walkable.

Start with a small breakfast at the hotel so you are at the bridge before the photo crowd. The north-shore core — Broken Bridge, Bai Causeway, Solitary Hill — is ninety minutes to two hours. Sit once. The pavilion shore called Autumn Moon over the Calm Lake is on this walk. You do not need a separate appointment for it.

Optional adds before lunch, one at most: Yue Fei Temple for 45–60 minutes if you want a historical interior, or Baochu Pagoda on Baoshi Hill for 45–70 minutes if the air is clear. Both is how lunch slides to 13:30 and the south shore loses its light. Neither is required.

The afternoon leg starts around 13:00 at the north end of Su Causeway. On a bike, get off at two bridges. On foot, allow until about 14:30 to reach Flower Harbor, then 40–60 minutes in the garden if you are sitting, not marching. Leifeng from about 15:30, for 60–90 minutes, puts you in the late light the pagoda is for. Taxi back to a north-shore hotel in 15–25 minutes when the legs are finished. Walking the east-shore road "to complete the circle" is the dull ending. Skip it.

Heat changes this clock. In July and August, finish Su Causeway before late morning and put Leifeng's lawn, not a long rim walk, in the later day. The best time page is the seasonal version of the same shape. In mist, stay on the causeway and delay the pagoda until you can see whether the air lifted.

Do not put Lingyin on this day "while we are fresh." You will arrive at the grottoes late morning, which is the crowded part, and you will spend the afternoon tired in a village or, worse, in a taxi to a wetland. Day one is the lake. The hills get a night's sleep and an opening gate.

Day two at Lingyin, then the shore you missed

The alarm is the point. Check Lingyin's opening, leave a lakeside hotel 20–35 minutes before you need to be at the gate, and ignore any plan that starts with a scenic breakfast on Hubin. Feilai Feng takes the first 60–90 minutes. The halls take the next 60–90 minutes. You are out around 11:00–11:30. That is a successful morning. A longer morning usually means you were in the entrance stalls or stuck behind a group at the Laughing Buddha, not that you saw more sculpture.

Lunch is unhurried because the afternoon is a shore, not a deadline. Choose the afternoon by what day one actually achieved.

If day one included the north core and Leifeng, take a boat of under an hour or a landing at Three Pools when the rules allow, and walk a piece of Yanggong Causeway on the west. Then stop. Repeating Leifeng at speed adds little.

If day one was rain, a late start, or a north shore only, the afternoon is Su Causeway and Leifeng, the south half described above, starting no later than 14:00 so the pagoda still gets some light. In summer, make it shadier and shorter.

If someone is done with walking, the afternoon is a museum on Solitary Hill or a long seat on a north-shore lawn. That is still a Hangzhou afternoon. Forcing Xixi into the hours after Lingyin is how both visits become a glimpse from a parking area.

Hefang Street can have its hour on this evening, after the early morning has been paid. Keep it to an hour. Qinghefang is a commercial pedestrian street southeast of the lake, useful for snacks, repetitive after that. The musical fountain on the east shore is a twenty-to-forty-minute extra only if you have checked that it is running. It is not the night's requirement. Sleep at a human hour if day three exists and also starts reasonably early.

Three days: add tea hills or Xixi

Keep day one and day two. Use day three for one addition, and delete the other from your notes.

Tea-village day. Leave around 8:30–9:00 for either Longjing village or Meijiawu, not both. Walk the lanes and a terrace before the lunch rush if you can, then eat in the village for 75–90 minutes. One tasting afterward, of the tea that was poured, and only if you want it. Be rolling back toward the lake by mid-afternoon. A late causeway walk is a bonus, not a duty. If you would rather see the rows in a quieter hour, swap the structure: Lingyin on day two as written, and the village on the morning of day three, which is the better version in April. Do not insert a second village on the way home. The detail of how to refuse a shop sequence is on the Lingyin and Longjing page. Follow it. The third day is a failure if it contains four tasting rooms and no sitting.

Wetland day. Leave for Xixi's gate around 8:30. Boardwalks and one boat segment, and be out by early afternoon, about three to four hours after you went in. Lunch after, not in a rush inside the first plaza. The afternoon is free on the shore you liked, or it is simply free. Xixi is northwest of the lake and it is a half day, not a second West Lake and not a combined ticket with a tea lane. The Xixi and day trips page is the longer account, including why Wuzhen does not fit beside it.

Choose the village in April if the flush is something you came for. Choose Xixi in summer if you want shade and you have already given the lake its dawn. Choose either in October or November for an easy extra. Do not choose both and call the day relaxed. The road between a tea village and Xixi crosses the city's west side and gives you two shortened visits. On a three-day stay that trade is never worth it.

A three-day stay still has one early night, the night before Lingyin. The village or the wetland does not require a 7:00 departure. You can have a human evening on night two, then a civilized morning on day three. That is the comfort you bought with the extra night. Do not spend it on a water town.

Four days: repeat the lake on purpose

Four days are not three days plus a leftover list. They are a slower lake, the temple, and one of the two additions, with a morning that has no ambition.

A workable order:

Day one. North shore only, 7:45 to lunch, then a boat and a long rest. You are deliberately not collecting Leifeng yet.

Day two. Lingyin at opening, lunch, then the south shore and Leifeng in the later afternoon. This is the two-day trip's day two, with the south shore promoted into it because day one stayed north.

Day three. Either the tea village, unhurried, or Xixi in the morning. Not both. If you choose the village, you may add the Nine Creeks walk only if the group wants a real path and you start early enough to finish in daylight. Most people should not. Lunch in the village, one tea, back.

Day four. Dawn on Su Causeway with no pagoda, no temple, and no departure hanging over the first hours. Walk or ride until you are done, which may be 10:30. Late breakfast. Then either a landing at the island, if the rules allow and you missed it, or nothing. A late train or a late flight can leave after lunch on this day without wrecking the stay, because the essential walks have already happened. An early flight cannot. If you fly at noon, day four's dawn still works only if the airport ride is already ordered and the bags are finished the night before. Xiaoshan is east of the city, often 45–70 minutes from the lake, longer in the morning rush. Believe the clock.

The emotional point of day four is repetition. You have already seen Bai Causeway. Seeing it again, emptier or in better light, is the luxury. Filling day four with Wuzhen, a second village, and Hefang is how a generous stay becomes a tiring one. Leave one name unused. That is the sign the four days were long enough.

In summer, day four's "nothing" may be the rest you refused to schedule on the hot afternoons. Take it. The causeway at 7:30 still counts as using the day.

Evenings that earn their time

Three evenings are worth planning. The rest are noise.

The lit causeway, especially Bai Causeway after 19:30, earns a short walk on any night you are not already exhausted. Twenty to forty minutes is the right length. It costs nothing and it looks different from the morning.

Dinner near the shore earns its time when it is one meal you sit down for: vinegar fish, Dongpo pork, or the shrimp with tea, then done. It does not earn a second district. A village lunch on the tea day means the evening meal should be simple and close to the hotel.

Hefang Street earns one hour, once, on a night that does not precede an opening-hour morning. Snacks, a look at the pedestrian lane under Wu Hill, and a taxi or a walk home. If you are enjoying a particular stall, stay for that stall. Do not stay because the street continues.

The musical fountain earns its time only after you have confirmed it is running, and only if you are already on the east shore. It does not earn a reshuffle of sunset at Leifeng.

What does not earn the evening: a night cruise plus the fountain plus Hefang; a tea shop that "opens late"; a trip back to Lingyin for illuminations you do not need; any plan that puts you in a car at 21:00 for a viewpoint. The mornings are where Hangzhou pays you. Evenings should protect them.

Combinations that ruin a day

Do not stack Lingyin, a tea village, and Xixi on day one, or on any single day. The temple wants opening. The village wants a meal and a walk. The wetland wants three to four hours and a different direction. Together they produce three arrival areas and no time standing still.

Do not put Wuzhen on a lake day. It is a separate half or full day by road, and it is not inside Hangzhou. On a two-day stay it replaces the stay. On a three-day stay it replaces the village or the wetland, and you should admit that trade before you go. On a four-day stay it can replace day three only if you drop both the village and a slow morning. Most people should not make that trade. The water town is crowded, managed, and different. It is not a bonus stop on the way back from Leifeng.

Do not put the Qiantang bore on a causeway morning. The bore is seasonal, strongest around the autumn equinox, and viewed downstream at Yanguan. It takes the day, or it takes nothing. There is no version in which you watch the tide and still walk Bai Causeway at 8:00 properly, unless you are willing to give the bore its own date beside a four-day stay and delete something else.

Do not start the tea lanes after a 14:00 checkout with suitcases in the car. That is a transfer with a shop attached. If the last day is a departure, let it be a dawn walk and a ride to Hangzhou East or HGH. The village requires a morning you still own.

Do not schedule Yue Fei, Jingci, Baoshi, Leifeng, both causeways, and a boat before lunch. Choose the north core, the south afternoon, and one extra. The ten scenes are not a schedule. They are names you will meet if you walk.

Arrival, departure, and the station name

Check the station before you lock the first morning. Hangzhou East is the main high-speed hub and is not on the lakeshore. A taxi to a north-shore or east-shore hotel is often 30–45 minutes once you are in the car. The metro is similar once you include the walk inside the station. Some trains use Hangzhou Station, closer to the south of the old city, or Hangzhou West, which is the wrong side of the map for a quick lakeside check-in. "Hangzhou" on a ticket is not specific enough.

From Shanghai Hongqiao, the train to Hangzhou East is often 45–70 minutes. From Suzhou it is about 1.5–2 hours. Add the transfer at both ends before you call anything a day trip. Arrive the evening before day one if the first morning matters, and it does.

Xiaoshan Airport is east of the city, across the river. Allow 45–70 minutes to the lake by car, more in the evening peak, and a little longer by metro once you are door to door. A dawn flight and a Lingyin morning do not share a date. A late morning flight can share a date with a dawn causeway if bags were ready the night before and the car is ordered.

Departures are calmer from Hangzhou East when you are on a high-speed train toward Shanghai. Give yourself more time than the ride. Station queues, especially in holidays, eat the margin. A 15:00 train can follow a real lunch. A 10:00 train follows only a short walk, and only if you are disciplined.

If you arrive at noon and leave at noon two days later, write "one full day" at the top of the plan and choose the lake. You will enjoy it more than a compressed temple sprint and a complaint about crowds.

Suzhou only if it has its own nights

Suzhou is a common pairing and a bad day trip. The gardens want their own mornings. The lake wants its own mornings. The train between Suzhou and Hangzhou East, about 1.5–2 hours, is the easy part. The hard part is pretending a garden and a causeway can share what is left of the day after two station transfers.

If you want both cities, add nights in Suzhou rather than subtracting a day from the shapes above. Two nights in Suzhou plus two or three in Hangzhou is a coherent East China week. One night in each is two arrival evenings. A same-day out-and-back from a lakeside hotel gives you a garden gate and a rush hour at Hangzhou East, and it steals the dawn you needed for Bai Causeway.

Read the Suzhou guide when those extra nights are real. Until they are, keep Suzhou off the daily plan. Hangzhou is complete without it. The hills, the wetland, and the shore are already more than a short stay can finish. Another city's gardens will not fit in the margin.