Qingdao from Luoyang: Laoshan, Badaguan and the Old Pier, 4 Days 3 Nights

Leave Luoyang Longmen in the morning and reach Qingdao North in a little over five hours. Drop the bags and lunch on mackerel dumplings, thin-skinned, dipped in vinegar with mashed garlic. The afternoon goes to Zhanqiao, a pier that runs more than four hundred metres into the sea and ends at a octagonal pavilion. In November nobody jostles, so you can walk to the rail and let the wind wreck your hair. Climb Zhongshan Road afterwards, where the old bank buildings are cut from local granite. Dinner near Pichai Yuan: clams fried with chilli, seaweed jelly, grilled squid.

Attraction introduction: Zhanqiao was built in 1892 as a military landing and runs 440 metres, with the Huilan Pavilion added at its tip in 1933. Much of the old town is built of Laoshan granite, and the banks along Zhongshan Road date from the German lease period.

Tips: The waterfront wind makes November feel five or six degrees colder than inland, and a scarf does more than a coat. Guests generally find spray comes over the deck at high tide and soaks your shoes. In practice, go before four, when the light falls along the pier.

Head east in the morning and change to the shuttle at Dahedong. The road climbs along the flank of the mountain with rock on one side and open sea on the other, and at each bend the red roofs of a fishing village show below. Get off at the cableway stop and take the stone steps to Taiping Palace. Three courtyards in sequence, and the cypress before the last hall has bark split into vertical strips that feel like rope under the hand. Higher up, Mingxia Cave opens east with the sea beneath it. Lunch down the hill, then the stretch from Bashui River to the Dragon Pool, where the water is low and the stones are worn round.

Attraction introduction: Laoshan main peak stands 1132 metres and is the highest point on the Chinese coastline. Taiping Palace was founded in 140 BC and remains the ancestral temple of a Quanzhen Daoist branch, keeping three courtyards and a cypress said to date from the Han. Mingxia Cave is a natural opening where Yuan dynasty monks once withdrew.

Tips: Supplies on the mountain are thin, so buy water at the visitor centre. Guests generally find pilgrims fill the palace before noon and photography is barred inside the halls. In practice, save the last courtyard for the end, when it clears and the cypress shadow lands flat on the paving.

Walk a single street in Badaguan in the morning. In November the plane trees have dropped their leaves and the pavement crackles underfoot, while the villas keep their gates shut behind low walls that show red tile and dormer windows. At Huashilou the stone facade is pitted by salt wind, and the top floor looks over the second bathing beach. Lunch nearby, then the Tsingtao Brewery museum, housed in the 1903 plant, where the tour ends with a glass of unfiltered beer and a fine head. At dusk, May Fourth Square, windy, with the sailing centre lighting up across the water.

Attraction introduction: Badaguan takes its name from eight roads named after passes and holds some two hundred villas in Russian, British, German and Japanese styles across seventy hectares. Huashilou was built in 1930 from granite and cobblestone. The brewery was founded in 1903 by German and British merchants.

Tips: Badaguan is a lived-in neighbourhood, so keep your voice down and do not push at gates. Guests generally find the deepest leaf litter comes in November but turns slippery after rain. In practice, the unfiltered beer is strong, so split a glass if the afternoon still has plans.

Climb Xiaoyushan in the morning. The hill is barely sixty metres and takes ten minutes, but from the pavilion at the top you take in the front harbour, the pier, Signal Hill and the spire of the Catholic church in one turn, which is where the phrase red roofs and green trees comes from. Come down Fushan Road, steep, with fig trees in the yards. Lunch is bought at the market, clams, shrimp and sea intestine, and carried to a shop next door that cooks it by weight. Then to Qingdao North for the afternoon train and five-odd hours back.

Attraction introduction: Xiaoyushan rises sixty metres and gives the classic view over the old town; its viewing pavilion has three tiers. The Fushan Road area was laid out as a villa district in the early twentieth century, and the Kang Youwei residence stands nearby. Market cooking shops usually sit one street from the stalls and charge by weight.

Tips: Ask at the stall whether the shellfish is live or chilled, since the price gap is wide. Guests generally find the cooking shops queue after noon, so arrive by half past eleven. In practice, book the train after three to leave time for cooking and eating.