Moganshan (Mount Mogan)

Bamboo Covered Hill Resort With Colonial Era Villas, Now Known For Its Guesthouses · Deqing, Zhejiang

A bamboo-covered hill above the plain north of Hangzhou that has been a summer refuge for more than a century. Shanghai's foreign residents built stone villas here in the 1890s to escape the heat of the city, and missionaries, merchants and later Chinese politicians followed; Chiang Kai-shek honeymooned in one of the houses, and the mountain kept a faintly European air of shuttered windows, verandas and pine-shaded lanes. After decades of decline the villas were rediscovered in the 2000s by designers who turned them into boutique guesthouses, and Moganshan became the model for China's rural hotel boom, with terraced cafés, bamboo-framed pools and weekend traffic from Shanghai and Hangzhou. Around the buildings, the mountain itself is quietly beautiful: paths run through groves of moso bamboo so dense they hush the air, past waterfalls, the Sword Pond where a legendary swordsmith worked, and viewpoints over a sea of green ridges. It is cool in summer, misty in spring, and best midweek, when the crowds thin.

Moganshan Scenic Area, Deqing County, Huzhou, Deqing, Zhejiang, China

Daily, about 8:00-17:00 with last entry around 16:30, and longer hours at the core sights in July and August (check).

Moganshan (Mount Mogan) on Spottos · Explore more places on Spottos