Jiangsu · Yangzhou
Yangzhou’s Slender West Lake is not a grand, open expanse of water but a long, winding ribbon of it, threading willow banks, arched bridges and classical garden pavilions into one long, walkable poem. The lake owes its shape to the salt merchants of the Qing dynasty, who turned a city moat into a pleasure ground; its icons are still the Five Pavilion Bridge, with its five yellow-tiled pavilions, and the slender White Pagoda rising behind the trees. Spring is the classic season, when peach blossom, cherry and willow line the Long Causeway, but summer brings lotus across the water and November sets the ginkgo and maples alight. After dark the bridges and pavilions are lit, and the whole lake glows.
Tips: Enter at the South Gate and walk the lakeside path north, crossing the Five Pavilion Bridge and stopping at the Fishing Platform, where the round doorway frames the bridge and White Pagoda in a single perfect shot. Then slow down properly: take a rowing boat — the boatwomen still sing Yangzhou folk songs — and finish with tea at the White Pagoda Teahouse before hunting down Yangzhou fried rice and lion’s head meatballs in the old town.
Photo: Tiger@西北 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)