Attractions · Ningbo

Tianyi Pavilion was built from the fortieth year of the Ming Jiajing era (1561) by Fan Qin (1506–1585), Vice Minister of War, and took about five years to complete. Its name comes from the Book of Changes: "Heaven gives birth to water, and earth completes it with six," meaning that water should master fire. The building answers this idea everywhere: a two-storey hall with a hard-ridge roof, its lower floor divided into six rooms and its upper floor left as one continuous space, with the Tianyi Pool dug in front to draw water around it and rockery and bamboo planted behind — library and garden forming a single design. Fan Qin laid down the family rule that "the books shall not be divided between generations, and the books shall not leave the pavilion." At its height the library held more than 70,000 juan, valued above all for Ming local gazetteers, examination records, veritable records and official documents, many of them unique copies. In the twelfth year of the Qing Kangxi era (1673), Huang Zongxi climbed the pavilion to read, setting a precedent for great scholars to use a private collection; Wan Sitong, Quan Zuwang and others followed. When the Qianlong court opened the Siku Quanshu office to collect books, Fan Maozhu, a descendant of the Fan family, presented 638 titles, and the Qing court ordered that the imperial and Jiangsu-Zhejiang library pavilions be built on its model — which is why Tianyi Pavilion is regarded as the mother of Chinese library architecture. Besides the library building, the grounds now include the East Garden, South Garden, Zunjing Pavilion, the Republican-era Qin family ancestral hall, known for its vermilion-and-gold woodcarving and theatre ceiling, and the Mingzhou Stele Forest of Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing inscriptions. Together with Moon Lake across the street they form the national 5A scenic area "Tianyi Pavilion and Moon Lake." Moon Lake took shape with the building of the Tang-dynasty Mingzhou prefectural city and was famed for its "Ten Islets" in the Southern Song — the other half of Ningbo's motto "books holding past and present."

Tip: Hiring a guide will give a better understanding of the library culture.

• Address: 10 Tianyi Street, Haishu District, Ningbo, Zhejiang
• Ticket: ¥30
• Opening: 08:30–17:30

After the Treaty of Nanjing in 1842, Ningbo was designated one of the five treaty ports and formally opened in 1844. British, French and other consuls and foreign firms then chose the north bank of the Three Rivers confluence, where the Yao and Fenghua rivers join the Yong, as their settlement, making the Old Bund one of the earliest modern waterfronts in China. The north bank once held consulates, the customs house, churches, foreign firms, steamship wharves and warehouses; most of what survives are brick-and-timber Western buildings of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with arcades, verandas and pitched roofs running along the street, where the layout of the old trading houses can still be made out. The Zhejiang Customs, established at Ningbo as early as the Kangxi reign, was one of the four great customs of the Qing and bears witness to the port's long involvement in East Asian shipping and the maritime porcelain trade. Since the 2000s this stretch of riverfront has been restored as a district of restaurants, bars, galleries and boutique hotels; the Ningbo Art Museum by the river was converted from an old wharf, and at night the lights fall on the Yong River, making this the liveliest nightlife area downtown. Not far behind the street stands the Qing'an Guild Hall, a Tianhou temple built by Qing shipping merchants and known for its vermilion-and-gold woodcarving, brick reliefs and stone carvings; together with the guild halls of local medicine and banking trades, it records where local merchants came from. The "Ningbo gang" that set out from the Three Rivers confluence later became one of the most influential merchant groups in modern China, best known to the world through Bao Yugang and Run Run Shaw.

Tip: Go at dusk to enjoy different day and night views. There are street performances at weekends.

• Address: Waima Road, Jiangbei District, Ningbo, Zhejiang
• Ticket: Free
• Opening: Open all day

The scenic area consists of two parts, Xikou old town and Xuedou Mountain, one carrying Republican history and the other Buddhist history. Xikou is the hometown of Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo: the Wuling Gate at the entrance is a gate-tower, and inside it the Fenghao House is the old Chiang family residence, its name taken from the Zhou capitals Feng and Hao to express a wish for the family's revival; the Yutai Salt Shop was run by Chiang's ancestors, and Chiang Kai-shek was born in 1887 (the thirteenth year of the Qing Guangxu era) in the rear room of the shop; the Wenchang Pavilion, rebuilt in the 1920s as a two-storey brick-and-timber building, became the Xikou residence of Chiang Kai-shek and Soong Mei-ling, while the Miaogao Terrace villa on the ridge was destroyed in 1949 and later rebuilt to its original appearance. Xuedou Temple is said to have been founded in the Jin, flourished in the Tang and prospered in the Song; in the Song it was listed among the "Five Mountains and Ten Monasteries" of Chan Buddhism, and Emperor Lizong, who dreamed of wandering on this mountain, wrote "Famous Mountain of a Fulfilled Dream" for it. In 1934 Master Taixu proposed that Xuedou Mountain be the fundamental Maitreya sanctuary, and in 1987 Zhao Puchu agreed; the newly built open-air seated Maitreya bronze before the temple is the symbol of that idea. Among the mountain's water and rock scenery, the Qianzhangyan and Xufuyan waterfalls and Miaogao Terrace are the finest; Miaogao Terrace stands directly above the Qianzhangyan falls, and from it you look down on the white stream plunging into the deep gorge. The town and mountain are about ten kilometers apart, so most visitors tour the Chiang family residences in the morning and go into the mountains for waterfalls and temples in the afternoon, all in one day.

Tip: Buy the combo ticket to visit more sights. Temperatures are lower on the mountain, so bring a jacket.

• Address: Xikou Town, Fenghua District, Ningbo, Zhejiang
• Ticket: ¥230 (combo ticket)
• Opening: 08:00–17:00

Dongqian Lake lies just east of Ningbo's urban area, with about 22 square kilometers of water — more than three times the size of Hangzhou's West Lake — and is Zhejiang's largest natural freshwater lake. From the Tang dynasty onward, successive dynasties built dikes and dredged it to store fresh water and keep out salt; in the eighth year of the Northern Song Qingli era (1048), Wang Anshi, then magistrate of Yin County, organized further dredging and protection, so that for more than a thousand years the lake has served irrigation, navigation and water regulation. Little Putuo (Xiayu) in the lake is said to be named after the Southern Song chancellor Shi Hao, who built a Putuo temple there in imitation of Mount Putuo; the long causeway across the water is the best place to view the lake. Along the shore and at the foot of the hills survive an unusually dense group of Southern Song tomb-path stone carvings — civil officials, military officers, standing horses and crouching tigers lined up along spirit roads, mostly connected with the Shi family of Yin County — now a national key cultural relic site. Taogong Island on the north shore is linked to the legend of Fan Li and Xi Shi retiring there, and Hanling Old Street in the southeast is an old village market built along a stream, recently renovated as a quarter of galleries and guesthouses. The lakeside cycling greenway and lakeside seafood restaurants draw weekend visitors, and at dusk the shadows of the western hills fall across the open water — the best place to linger on the edge of Ningbo.

Tip: You can rent a bicycle and cycle around the lake, with beautiful scenery along the way.

• Address: Dongqian Lake Town, Yinzhou District, Ningbo, Zhejiang
• Ticket: Free
• Opening: Open all day