As dusk fell yesterday, young people held coffees inside the "Yun Tu Mao Mao Little Train Theme Space" on the greenway along the Fuyun Creek in Yunhe county, gazing through the windows at runners by the creek. This retro-style train-shaped cafe, built with elements reflecting Yunhe’s wooden toy industry, has become a popular spot for residents to relax and take photos. “Every day, many citizens who are cycling or running on the greenway come in for coffee, and on weekends, the stream of customers is endless,” Meng Jie, General Manager of Zhejiang Yun Chuangxiang Cultural Creativity Co., Ltd., told reporters.

Since 2018, when Yunhe County began promoting greenway construction around the concept of “One City, One Belt, One Park”, it has cleverly used the Fuyun Creek as an axis to connect three major areas: the county town, Yunhe Lake, and the Yunhe Terraces scenic area. This has established a comprehensive greenway network system of “leisure corridors, waterfront greenways, and rural ancient trails”, stringing together scattered natural landscapes and cultural resources like pearls into a necklace. To date, Yunhe has completed 275 kilometers of greenway construction, with a total investment of 935 million yuan.

In this construction, Yunhe focuses on integrating local elements like wooden toys and snow pears, meticulously incorporates Boat Gang cultural characteristics, and has built supporting facilities including 57 scenic spots such as wooden toy-themed stations, “Clear Spring on Rock”, “Rest in the Shady Woods”, and “Listening to the Lake by the Mountains”. This achieves “one stop, one feature; one section, one theme”.

Greenway construction has not only changed the city’s appearance but also reshaped people’s lifestyles. The “Fairy Tale Study” on the Houshan section of the Fuyun Creek greenway combines exercise with reading and leisure. Sitting by the window with a book after a workout has become a favored pastime for residents and tourists alike. “The environment here is excellent. I often come with my child to read books after exercise on weekends,” said Zhang Rujuan, who was selecting books inside the study.

Relying on the increasingly robust greenway network, Yunhe has successfully connected 34 core scenic spots, including Yunhe Lake and the Yunhe Terraces National Wetland Park, as well as 28 traditional ancient villages. It has carefully launched multiple premium tourism routes, allowing visitors to immersively experience Yunhe’s landscape beauty and cultural heritage. “The planned total length of the circular Yunhe Lake greenway is 55 kilometers, and 7.41 kilometers have been built so far. We are accelerating the remaining work and expect it to be fully connected by 2026. At that time, it will seamlessly link with the Fuyun Creek greenway and rural ancient trails, forming a 324-kilometer greenway network and further weaving a denser ‘transportation web’ for all-for-one tourism,” said the project leader, Lan Yefeng.

Meanwhile, Yunhe County has also strategically developed specialized projects along the greenways, such as ecological picking and farming experiences, establishing a number of modern agricultural industrial parks and premium picking gardens, including the Shitang Town Guixi Village Snow Pear Demonstration Base. During the snow pear ripening season, tourists walk along the greenways into the orchards to pick fresh fruit themselves, boosting agricultural sales and increasing farmers' incomes. According to statistics, the base helps surrounding farmers increase their average annual income by approximately 16,000 yuan.

Over the past year, Yunhe has also fully utilized the greenways’ beautiful natural environment and suitable terrain to host national and provincial-level sports events. During these events, the occupancy rate of bed and breakfasts along the greenways exceeded 90%, generating direct consumption in catering and accommodation of over 30 million yuan.

Today, in Yunhe, greenways have long surpassed their sole function as a “travel route”. They have become a comprehensive platform integrating ecological protection, cultural inheritance, leisure tourism, physical fitness, and increased prosperity for residents. A relevant official from the Yunhe County Development and Reform Bureau stated that with the full opening of the circular Yunhe Lake greenway approaching, Yunhe will further expand the depth and breadth of the “greenway economy”, adding theme stations, ecological education points, and intangible cultural heritage display areas to make the greenways’ functions more complete.