Your personal guide will meet you at your Beijing hotel at 7am and transfer you to the Beijing South Railway Station to take the Bullet Train to Tianjin. Enjoy a comfortable First Class seat for around 35 minutes. Upon arrival at Tianjin another private car and driver will meet you and your guide at the railway station to start your tour. Tianjin has the fourth largest urban population in China after Beijing Shanghai and Guangzhou and has a long history dating back many centuries. It has featured prominently in actions during the Opium Wars and the Boxer Rebellion and was an early Treaty Port allowing British and French concessions together with Japan, Germany and Russia. Your first stop today is in the area known as the Five Great Avenues. Located in Heping District south of the downtown area of Tianjin, the Five Great Avenues are five parallel roads running east to west across the city and all named after five Chinese cities; Chongqing, Changde, Dali, Machang and Munan. In this area you will see well over 200 buildings with architecture from all over Europe. Machang Avenue is the widest and longest, as well as being the oldest. Here you will see the Spanish Villa style building that was once the residence of the British Overseas Scholar, Da Wenshi. Also along Machang Avenue you can see Beijiang Museum, one of the earliest museums in China and built in a Roman architectural style. There are also many notable early 20th century buildings to be seen along Munan Avenue and Dali Avenue.

From the Five Great Avenues continue to Jing Garden or Garden of Serenity. Built in the Spanish style in 1921, the complex was adopted as the residence of Puyi, the last Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, in 1929 when he moved here with his Empress Wan Rong and Concubine Wenxiu. The main building has 21 rooms that have been restored to their original purpose.

After lunch you will have a chance to relax a little as you walk along Tianjin’s Ancient Cultural Street. Here you will find many antique and jade stores and in the center of the 700 meter long street, the Temple of the Queen of Heaven dedicated to the Goddess of the Sea. You will have time to enjoy visiting the Temple as well as exploring many fascinating shops.