Miniature Europe in Tianjin

🌆 DISCOVER TIANJIN IN 1 DAY
#tianjin #china ##beijing #deliciousfood
🚄 How to get there
Tianjin is about 120km from Beijing, and luckily there is a high-speed train running at over 300km/h, so it only takes about 30 minutes to get there. I bought a ticket from Beijing South Station, the train is clean, smooth, spacious and has a very clean toilet!
A small note: the train station in Beijing is very large, so remember to buy tickets in advance and arrive at the station at least 1 hour if you want to walk around, take pictures or buy food before boarding the train.
🏛️ What to do?
After the Second Opium War, Tianjin had 9 concessions from countries such as England, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, Italy, America... Therefore, the architecture here has a strong classical European style, many buildings are preserved intact to this day.
I went in one day, so I chose to visit two areas with contrasting styles:
- Italian Style Town: more than 200 Italian-style buildings — from villas, restaurants, squares to ancient mansions. The European-style architecture, combined with the chilly early autumn weather, really made me feel like I was in Europe.
- Tianjin Old Town: smaller than the old areas in Beijing, but very unique and easy to walk around. There are many small shops, cute souvenirs and affordable prices.
On the way cycling from the Italian Town to the old town, I also passed the bridge with the big Ferris wheel — a symbol of Tianjin. That day, the weather was cool, with a light breeze, so the air was extremely pleasant.
🥟 Cuisine
What I love most about Tianjin is… surprisingly delicious food!
🧋 Drinks at 张家水铺 (Zhangjia Shuipu)
Located in Tianjin Cultural Walking Street, this shop is famous for its pear juice and sour plum juice, but I chose to try 老味奶茶 - ancient milk tea, priced at 18 yuan (about 70k).
The tea is fragrant, the milk is moderately rich, without any industrial cream smell. Very delicate, very much my taste!
🥟 Tianjin Bao:
The bun has a sauce filling inside, completely different from Xiaolongbao. The crust is soft but still chewy, with a fragrant smell of flour, when you bite into it, the sauce seeps out, extremely delicious. I only ate at a roadside shop but it was so delicious that it was 10/10 points!
Tianjin also has the very famous “狗不理包子” (Goubuli) dumplings, and fried dough sticks and donuts are also traditional dishes here — but fried dough sticks are not to my taste, and the line for donuts is too long, so I had to skip it 😅