Wuliuxiang History Block

This guide to the Wuliuxiang History Block in Hangzhou opens with a fourth-century poet, Tao Yuanming, who wrote his own biography without ever naming himself, calling himself only Mister Five Willows after the trees by his door. You'll hear how, eight hundred years later, a Song-dynasty garden on this same ground borrowed that name, and how the garden's name outlived the garden itself to land on the lane you're standing in. The guide traces the old market route along the bluestone paving, once linking the Grand Canal to the Qiantang River, and the whitewashed courtyards of Siweili nearby. Follow the willows along the water to the cafes tucked into century-old houses.