9 Hangzhou and Suzhou Hotels by the Water Gardens

West Lake was not found. It was composed.

From the ninth century onward, successive governors of Hangzhou dredged it, built causeways across it, planted the banks and placed pagodas at calculated points, and Chinese poets and painters then gave the results names. The Ten Scenes of West Lake — Lingering Snow on the Broken Bridge, Autumn Moon over the Calm Lake, Three Pools Mirroring the Moon — are essentially fixed viewpoints, each with a stone tablet, a poem attached and a prescribed season and hour at which to stand there.

UNESCO listed it in 2011 on the grounds that this composed landscape influenced garden design across China, Japan and Korea for a thousand years. It is one of the few World Heritage sites listed for being an idea about how to look at scenery.

Suzhou, and gardens built as paintings

An hour and a half north, Suzhou has nine classical gardens on the World Heritage list, most built by retired scholars and officials between the eleventh and nineteenth centuries on small urban plots.

They work on borrowed scenery and framed views: a window cut to compose a rock against a wall, a corridor that turns so the same pond is revealed three times differently, a path that cannot be walked quickly. They are not gardens to sit in. They are gardens to move through at the pace of unrolling a scroll, which is exactly what they were modelled on.

Go early. The Humble Administrator's Garden takes several thousand visitors a day and the effect collapses entirely in a crowd.

The two cities

Hangzhou has the lake, the tea terraces at Longjing where China's most famous green tea is grown, and the Lingyin temple in a wooded valley with Buddhist figures carved into the limestone cliffs opposite.

Suzhou has the gardens, a canal old town and a silk industry going back two thousand years.

Tongli and the water towns, around Suzhou, are canal villages with stone bridges, some heavily commercialised and some not.

The two cities are ninety minutes apart by high-speed rail and both are under an hour from Shanghai.

The nine below are grouped by city.

Hangzhou

The lake and the hills behind it.

Amanfayun occupies a village of restored buildings in a valley beside the Lingyin temple, with tea fields around it, stone lanes between the rooms and no lake view at all. It is the most serene hotel in China.

Four Seasons Hotel Hangzhou at West Lake sits on the West Lake shore with gardens, a pool and rooms looking across the water at the pagoda.

Banyan Tree Hangzhou occupies a position on the lake with villas, a spa and canals cut through the grounds.

Hyatt Regency Hangzhou sits on the lakefront with contemporary rooms, a good bar and full facilities.

Hotel Indigo Hangzhou occupies a building near the lake with a design-led interior and rates below the waterfront hotels.

Suzhou

The gardens and the canals.

Pan Pacific Suzhou occupies a property built around a classical garden of its own, with pavilions, water and a pool, a short walk from the Master of the Nets garden.

W Suzhou sits by Jinji Lake in a building of considerable ambition with a spa and the most contemporary rooms in the city.

Shangri-La Hotel, Suzhou occupies a position near the old town with a pool, a spa and reliable rooms.

The water towns

Blossom Hill Inn Tongli occupies a converted courtyard property in Tongli with a handful of rooms, a garden and the canals outside.

What we have left off

The canal-side guest houses in Tongli and the Suzhou old town are excluded, and several are in genuinely old buildings on the water. They are guest houses rather than hotels.

What to do

Walk the West Lake causeways early, before eight, when the mist is on the water and the tai chi is happening. The Su and Bai causeways are the two to do.

Drink tea where it grows. The Longjing terraces are twenty minutes from the lake and the villages sell it at the roadside; the Tea Museum explains the grades.

See the Lingyin temple and the Feilai Feng carvings opposite it — around 340 figures cut into the limestone between the tenth and fourteenth centuries.

In Suzhou, do two gardens rather than five, at opening. The Master of the Nets is the smallest and the most perfectly judged; the Humble Administrator's is the largest and the busiest.

Take a boat on the Grand Canal, which runs from Beijing to Hangzhou, is the longest artificial waterway in the world and is still carrying freight.

Practical notes

Hangzhou and Suzhou both sit on the high-speed network; Shanghai is under an hour from either and its airports serve both. Hangzhou has its own international airport.

March to May and September to November are best. Summer is hot and humid. Winter is cold and damp, and snow on the lake is one of the named scenes for a reason.

Book garden entry ahead where the system requires it, and go at opening regardless.

Why is West Lake a World Heritage site?

For being a deliberately composed landscape that shaped garden design across East Asia for a thousand years.

How many Suzhou gardens should you see?

Two, early. They are designed to be moved through slowly and they do not work in a crowd.

Hangzhou or Suzhou?

Hangzhou for the lake and the tea, Suzhou for the gardens and the canals. Ninety minutes apart.

How many nights?

Four. Two in each.

If you only book one