Tianjin

Over twenty streets of the former British concession lined with some two thousand Western villas. Horse carriages leave from outside Minyuan Square for a circuit, and plaques on the houses say who lived in each.

In 1902 this became Italy's only concession in China, and its piazza, fountain and Italianate buildings survive almost unchanged. Restaurants and bars now take every ground floor, and the outdoor tables fill in the evening.

A 120-metre wheel sitting on a bridge over the Hai River, completed in 2008. One turn takes about thirty minutes; once the rim lights up after sunset the queue lengthens, so go a little before dusk.

A street rebuilt in Qing style around Tianhou Temple, a shrine to the sea goddess Mazu founded in 1326. Old Tianjin craft shops, the Zhang family clay figures and kite makers among them, line both sides.

A church raised in 1916 on the fringe of the French concession, red and yellow brick under three green domes. It faces you straight down the Binjiang Road shopping street, and during Sunday Mass the doors are open to go in.

A 1920s concession-era stadium rebuilt in 2014 as a public square, with a walkway looping round the top of the stands. Every evening neighbours walk or jog up there, and the Five Great Avenues carriages start in front.

An old French-concession mansion bought by a private collector and covered, walls, stairs and roof, in broken porcelain and antique bowls. From afar it is a glittering lump; up close every shard carries a different pattern. Admission is on the steep side.

A library opened in 2017, where tiers of shelving ripple round a spherical auditorium, earning it the nickname the Eye. Much of the upper shelving holds printed spines rather than real books, which sit only on the lower rows within reach.

A stretch of the wall riding the ridges of Jizhou, north of Tianjin, about two hours by car. Below the pass sits a village laid out as a bagua, easy to get lost in, and the wall section is so steep you climb with your hands on the steps.

Boats follow the Hai River as it bends through the centre, passing under bridge after bridge. Each is shaped and lit differently, so the night runs are the ones to take, and everyone on deck looks up as the boat slides beneath the Tianjin Eye.

The house in the Japanese concession where Puyi, last Qing emperor, lived for just over 2 years from 1929 after being expelled from the Forbidden City. Its two-storey Western rooms are refurnished, and displays tell how he slipped away from here to Manchuria.

French missionaries built this Gothic church by the river in 1869. It burned in the Tianjin Massacre a year on and under the Boxers in 1900; today's church dates from 1904. Its three towers face the river, and the doors are often shut outside Mass.

Its Guanyin Pavilion, rebuilt under the Liao in 984, still stands, holding a 16m clay eleven-headed Guanyin that rises through the upper floor. Lying a 2-hour ride to the north, it pairs with the Huangyaguan Wall on one day out.

A steel bascule bridge laid over the Hai River in front of Tianjin Station in 1927, its middle built to lift on both sides for ships. It rarely opens now, but the ironwork is intact, and after dark it is lit up, in view from the station square.

An old Grand Canal town west of the city, home since the Ming of Yangliuqing woodblock New Year prints. Workshops show the printing, and the Shi family compound, a Qing merchant mansion, runs through dozens of courtyards where it is easy to get lost.

Tianjin is the home of xiangsheng, comic dialogue for two, staged every evening in teahouse theatres. You order tea and sunflower seeds and watch; the rapid local dialect defeats even fluent Mandarin speakers, but the laughter in the room carries the night.