Old Ten Views of West Lake
Orioles Singing in the Willows
The park is a part of the Southern Song Dynasty’s Royal Garden before. After liberation, the park covers a total area of 300 areas by renovation and enlarging. It is a wonderful leisure place with the green willow leaves and orioles warbling. In the spring, the vernal breezes stroke the willows, their branches sway gently, bending over to kiss the rippling water. Walk in the garden, the orioles singing, the willows dancing, what a wonderful time it is. Now the park is combined by three gardens: Orioles Singing Garden, Friendship Garden and Collected Scenery Garden. The eastern south of the Garden is served as a traditional public entertainment site. An open stage is built there. It is a good place for Hangzhou citizens and tourists to enjoy themselves. In the Summer and Autumn, the garden is served as an “evening garden”. The lanterns exhibition, the traditional folk performance and cinema attract a lot of visitors every night. The park locates on the Nianshan Road of West Lake District, now is one of the views along the south bank of the West Lake.
Three Pools Mirroring the Moon
The islet is one of the three islands in West Lake, it is named as “Lesser Yingzhou” which means the “Fairy Islet”. Among the three islet in the lake, the Lesser Yingzhou is the biggest and finest one. And it is recommended as “The best scenic spot in West Lake”. The islet covers an area of 7 hectares including the water surface and features “a lake within an island and an island within a lake”. The wonderful garden design made this islet very unique among the ten top views. This island was built in 1607 with dredges from the lake to create a lake within a lake initially. Afterwards, three small gourd- shaped pagodas were built in the south lake of the islet called “three pools”. At the beginning of Qing Dynasty, a general named Peng Yulin, after retiring from his official post, built for himself a garden villa on the island and then zigzag bridges, pavilions were added. After you go ashore at the port located on the north of the islet, two buildings will meet your eye firstly. Then, you will walk along the zigzag bridge which is better known as the “Nine � Turn Bridge”. There are total four pavilions along this bridge including the Open Net Pavilion, Tingting Pavilion, Experor Kangxi Stele Pavilion and “Heart � linking � to - Heart” Pavilion.
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