Wu Hill, made up of 10 or more peaks, is located at the end of the hills around the West Lake. It stretches for several miles and extends into the downtown area. Besides, it is locally called Chenghuang Hill.
It is also a place where you can enjoy different scenes in different seasons for it is covered with a rich variety of trees and flowers. There are a lot of odd-shaped rocks and inscriptions on the hill. A strange cluster of rocks known as the “Twelve Animal Stones” appears like the twelve animals in the Chinese lunar calendar symbolizing the different years in which people are born: rat, ox, tiger, hare, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and hog, and it is also called the “Twelve Peaks of Witch Hill”. On the hill, there are also many camphor trees . One of them, the oldest one, “Song Camphor”, standing in front of a hilltop teahouse which is called “Tea Aroma Tower”, is more than 800 years old.
On the top of Wu Hill, there is a pavilion where you can have a view of both Qiantang River and West Lake as the hill situates between Qiantang River and West Lake. Walking out of the pavilion, you can see an inscription lauding a huge rock as “No. One Peak of Wu Hill” by Zhu Xi, an famous educationist of the Southern Song Dynasty.
Recently, Panoramic View Pavilion and Tea Aroma Tower were built on the Wu Hill. Furthermore ginkgo, Chinese sweet gum, pine tree and evergreen camphor were planted all over the hill to accompany the “Song Camphor”. As the new scene blends perfectly with the old, all these create a more attractive appearance of Wu Hill . |
