Tianmu Hot Springs

Tianmu Hot Springs draws siliceous geothermal water in the Linan district of Zhejiang province, at the foot of the Tianmushan reserve in the Hangzhou metropolitan hinterland, where the warm mineral springs emerge from the Mesozoic granite formations of the Tianmu mountains in a landscape of ancient ginkgo forests, Buddhist temple paths, and the primeval broad-leaved forest of the Tianmushan National Nature Reserve, one of the most biodiverse forest remnants in eastern China. The Tianmushan reserve protects the largest remaining old-growth ginkgo forest in China, its trees reaching 40 metres in the valley temples where Tang and Song dynasty Buddhist monks planted the sacred fangyan ginkgo whose autumn transformation to brilliant gold has been celebrated in Chinese poetry since the Tang period, making the November foliage season at Tianmu one of the most celebrated botanical spectacles in the Yangtze Delta region. The siliceous springs of Tianmu, appreciated for skin comfort and relaxation in the Chinese mineral bath tradition, flow in a mountain resort that combines Zhejiang's sophisticated tea culture, whose Longjing green tea is produced in the same Hangzhou hills thirty kilometres to the east, with forest walking, temple visiting, and warm mineral bathing that together constitute the classical Chinese formula for mountain wellness retreat.