Hangzhou Highlights Private Day Tour: West Lake & Lingyin

Meet your guide in the hotel lobby in the morning and transfer to the pier for a one-hour boat ride on West Lake . Relax on the water while taking in the surrounding hills, pavilions and bridges.

Leave the boat at Su Causeway and visit Huaxiang Guanyu (Fish Viewing at the Flower Pond), one of the Ten Scenes of West Lake. After lunch, continue to Lingyin Temple and Peak Flown from Afar. Return to your hotel when the visits are complete.

Meals: Lunch

The West Lake has long been celebrated for its landscape, historic sites, cultural heritage and local products. Legend describes it as a heavenly jewel that fell to earth, while geographically it is a lagoon on Hangzhou's western edge. Its scenery has inspired painters for centuries.

Lingyin Temple is counted among China's ten renowned ancient Buddhist monasteries. Peak That Flew Here and Cold Spring stand in front of the complex. Historical accounts say the Indian monk Huili founded the temple during the Eastern Jin dynasty (317–420) in 326 and named it Lingyin after the mountain. During the Qing dynasty, Emperor Kangxi (1662–1723) later gave it the name Yunlin Buddhist Temple.
 

Peak Flown from Afar is known for its scenery and Buddhist stone carvings, which are often compared with the Dazu rock carvings in Sichuan. More than 470 figures cut into its caves and cliffs date from the Five Dynasties period (907–960) through the Yuan dynasty. According to legend, the Indian monk Huili arrived in the valley 1,600 years ago and believed that the unfamiliar-looking peak had flown there from India.

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