What's the must-see thing in Hangzhou?

West Lake, and it's not even close. Stand on the Broken Bridge at 6:30am. Fog sits on the water, the silhouette of Baochu Pagoda (first built around 1000 AD) rises from Precious Stone Hill, and you start to understand why Chinese poets spent a millennium on this specific body of water. The lake covers 6.39 km², and on a weekday morning you might have the northern causeway nearly to yourself. By 10am that changes. Tour buses from Shanghai line the east shore 4-deep, selfie sticks outnumber willow trees, and the humidity in June sits around 65% at 22°C. Go before 7am. The lotus smell is strongest before the heat burns it off. Su Causeway runs 2.8 km north-to-south with six arched bridges, and the stone is cool underfoot at dawn. Free entry, always. UNESCO inscribed the entire West Lake Cultural Landscape in 2011.

The second pick is Lingyin Temple. It sits 3 km west of the lake in a forested valley where the air drops 3-4°C cooler than the city center. The temple was founded in 326 AD and remains one of the ten largest Buddhist temples in China. Incense smoke at the Mahavira Hall entrance is thick enough that your clothes carry the sandalwood scent for hours. The combined ticket for the temple and Feilai Feng is ¥75 (about $11 USD). Feilai Feng is the cliff face behind the temple, carved with 470 Buddhist rock sculptures from the 10th to 14th century. Go before 9am. After 2pm, the crowds turn the narrow Feilai Feng cave paths into a single-file shuffle.

Liuhe Pagoda stands on Yuelun Hill above the Qiantang River, first built in 970 AD and rebuilt in 1156 after fire. Thirteen stories, 59.89 meters tall. The spiral wooden staircase inside creaks with every step, and the Qiantang below is audible through the window slats. Worth noting, the pagoda was originally constructed to calm the Qiantang tidal bore, one of the largest on earth, which peaks every September or October around the Mid-Autumn Festival. Ticket is ¥20 (about $3 USD). The climb takes 20 minutes if you stop at the Song-dynasty inscriptions on each level. The view west over the Qiantang from the upper floors is better in afternoon light than morning.

Skip Leifeng Pagoda unless you have a specific interest in the Legend of the White Snake. The original collapsed in 1924, and the 2002 reconstruction is concrete and steel with an elevator inside. The ¥40 (about $6 USD) ticket buys you a modern observation tower in a pagoda shell. The view of West Lake from the top is fine, but the view from Su Causeway is free and better. If you have 90 minutes to spare, the China National Tea Museum in Longjing village (opened 1991) is where you'll understand why Hangzhou's Dragonwell tea sells for ¥3,000 to ¥50,000 per kilogram. The Longjing tasting room is quiet on weekday afternoons, and the tea at proper temperature has a chestnut sweetness you won't find in the bagged export version.