Slender West Lake and Historic Urban Area in Yangz

Yangzhou used to be very difficult to get to, and I'm not talking about ancient times but pre-2000 even. There are now a half dozen bridges and a high-speed train access to make it super easy of course, but back in the days it was basically a secret place to visit.

2 of the 3 components are already inscribed as part of the Grand Canal WHS. I used to think the Ge Yuan is also inscribed but it just falls outside of the core zone after all so there is technically another world heritage site here, although the criteria for inscribing these again would be different to the Grand Canal anyway. My thumbs down start with it being already inscribed and the very crappy criteria such as being a traditional "tourism destination". Don't get me wrong - Yangzhou is overall a great place to visit!

Slender West Lake is probably a must-see anyway but shelling out for gardens is maybe not so great. A mix between Beijing's Beihai, Suzhou's Gardens and Ancient Administrator houses, maybe a bit of Hangzhou's West Lake due to the bridges, there isn't much new if here if you have visited those before. For anyone else this is a great place to see something fresh and the mix of these isn't bad in any way.

The biggest attraction is obviously Slender Lake because it's so large. If you want to see all it can take several hours but you can easily skip the …

They are fantastic sites both Slender West Lake and old town of Yangzhou. The food and tea of Yangzhou are all excellent. The only problem is that it's always crowded in such "slender" park and town, where is hard to taste the sophisticated beauty by heart.