China weekend break: Huizhou Lake District’s rich history and idyllic walks make for a relaxing trip

Checking the schedule for long-distance, high-speed rail routes from Hong Kong’s West Kowloon terminus, it appears one of the few convenient stops for a weekend away with my wife and son is Huizhou in central Guangdong province.

Huizhou is the name of both a city and the surrounding county in the eastern “Greater Bay Area”, with a mix of urban areas, culture and scenery. The city was once noted for its gangsters, with a 1997 San Francisco Chronicle describing it as being “widely regarded as [China’s] de facto capital of organised crime.”

Today Huizhou’s top tourist attraction is the West Lake, and we booked into an inexpensive boutique hotel by the northwest shore. It turns out this is in a rather sleepy neighbourhood with buildings hosting chic looking cafes and hostels, along with restaurants serving Cantonese fare.

Rows of broadleaf trees flank a lakeside path. There are no triad bosses with mirrored sunglasses here – only families and couples strolling past, and some elderly men playing cards at a couple of tables.

China has 36 “West Lakes”, but only three are really famous: in Hangzhou, Yingzhou, and here. Huizhou’s lake was enlarged around 1966, along with the addition of pavilions and bridges.

From the 1950s to 1980s, housing projects encroached on the lake. But in 2007, the local government began a major rehabilitation project, protecting the remaining West Lake and several historic buildings, and constructing a host of footpaths, bridges, pavilions and corridors in Lingnan – traditional Cantonese calligraphy – style.