Serica Journeys Day journeys in China
East China · 杭州

Hangzhou

A lake that has been curated for a thousand years.

Typical day
7–9 hours
Party size
1–6 guests
Guiding
English
Pick-up
Hangzhou city hotels

West Lake is not natural scenery. It is a landscape composition, dredged, embanked, planted and framed over a millennium, with the causeways named after the poets who built them. Read that way it is far more interesting than a walk by some water.

An hour inland the hills produce Longjing tea, and the villages that make it are open to anyone who arrives with someone who can translate. We pair the two.

Journeys

2 private day journeys in Hangzhou.

Prices are quoted per party once we know your dates and numbers. Every itinerary below can be adjusted — they are how we run the day by default, not a fixed menu.

8 hours Private departureEnglish guide

West Lake and a Longjing Tea Village

Su Causeway · Lake boat · Longjing village · Tea tasting

Itinerary
08:00
Pick-up. Su Causeway on foot from the south.
09:30
Boat to Xiaoyingzhou and the Three Pools Mirroring the Moon.
11:00
Into the hills to a Longjing village.
12:00
Lunch with the grower's family.
13:30
The terraces, the wok-firing, and a tasting across grades.
15:30
Lingyin Temple on the way back, if time allows.
17:00
Back at your hotel.
Highlights
  • The causeways on foot before the day-trip coaches arrive from Shanghai
  • Boat across the lake to the island with the stone lanterns
  • A working tea village, in the hills, with a family that picks its own
  • Tasting led by the grower, translated properly
Included
  • Private vehicle and driver
  • English-speaking guide
  • Lake boat
  • Village lunch
  • Tea tasting
  • Bottled water
Not included
  • Tea purchases
  • Lingyin Temple entry
  • Gratuities

Know before you go. Picking season runs roughly late March to early May. Outside it you will see the terraces and the processing, but not the harvest.

6 hours Private departureEnglish guide

Lingyin Temple and the Feilai Peak Carvings

Lingyin Temple · Feilai Feng grottoes · Vegetarian lunch

Itinerary
08:00
Pick-up. Enter through the Feilai Feng grotto path.
09:00
The carvings, including the laughing Maitreya in the rock.
10:30
Lingyin Temple's halls, in sequence up the slope.
12:00
Vegetarian lunch.
13:00
Return, with a stop at Longjing if you would like one.
14:00
Back at your hotel.
Highlights
  • One of the oldest and largest Chan Buddhist temples in China, still fully monastic
  • Hundreds of Song and Yuan carvings in the limestone opposite the temple
  • Temple vegetarian lunch, eaten where the monks eat
  • Early entry, before the incense crowds
Included
  • Private vehicle and driver
  • English-speaking guide
  • Scenic area and temple entry
  • Vegetarian lunch
  • Bottled water
Not included
  • Personal spending
  • Gratuities

Know before you go. Lingyin is an active monastery. Modest dress, and photography is restricted inside the halls.

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Shanghai
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Chengdu
Guilin & Yangshuo
Chongqing