Leifeng Pagoda

Highlights

• Sunset View of West LakeOne of the 10 Scenes; arrive 1 hour before sunset
• Original Brick FoundationsGlass-floor basement display; 975 CE foundations
• Legend of White Snake StorySetting of the Chinese folktale; signs explain in English

What Chinese travelers actually do here

Distilled from Chinese-language travel notes — the practical tips most English guides miss.

• ▸Take the escalators that climb the hillside to the base; the actual pagoda climb is then only five short flights, easy for most ages.
• ▸Most miss the glass-floor basement: the exposed 975 CE brick foundations are the only genuinely old part of the whole site.
• ▸Shoot the pagoda itself from across the water near the Su Causeway; from inside you photograph the lake, not the tower.
• ▸Late afternoon light turns the copper cladding warm gold; midday flattens it and the lake haze hides the far shore.
• ▸Crowds bunch on the top balcony at sunset; one floor down is nearly as good and far less elbow-to-elbow.
• ▸After dark the pagoda is floodlit and visible free from the south shore, so a paid climb at dusk gives you both views.
• ▸It sits at the lake’s southern tip near Jingci Temple; chain it with a southern-shore stroll rather than a separate trip.