An important reason for my visit to Hangzhou was to visit a recently restored historical site dating to the Southern Song Dynasty: Deshou Palace.

But that attraction did not open until 9:30, so first we casually ambled around a lovely nearby neighborhood.

Deshou Palace was an absolutely wonderful site. The building was a reconstruction carfully designed to match the original appearance. It was paced full of artifacts as well as artwork related to the history and culture if the era. Various panels provided text that gave historical background .

An interesting modern twist was a huge interactive video display with a seemingly random collection if Chinese written characters that floated downwards. If you touched a character, it triggered the screen to display a relevant poem!

Historically this palace had been a sort if retirement quarters for the emperor. It had included extensive gardens of which only a small section has yet been restored .

A beautiful place! I could easily have spent a whole day there. It was a shame that our train tickets forced us onward to Tongling, where Jim wanted to show me his hometown!