Qingdao: history and beer

Millions of Chinese sun-seekers annually visit Qingdao, the beach capital of northern China. It occupies a hilly peninsula on the eastern coast of the mainland that meets the Yellow Sea in a series of stunning bays. Olympic yachting events will take place here this summer, but that's not the only thing that makes Qingdao famous. Formerly known as Tsingtao, the city gave its name to the beer that is still bottled at a historic brewery here.

Fancy housing developments that have sprouted in the wetlands on Jiaozhou Bay, west of Qingdao, the city's new sports stadium and Super Seafood, a 10-floor fish restaurant as big as a department store.

Qingdao was little more than a village in the late 19th century when the great powers of Europe began grabbing territory in China. Germany claimed Qingdao and turned it into a modern seaport, erecting government buildings, churches and villas that wouldn't look out of place in Hamburg, Germany. The German imprint unfolds like an architectural handbook of the building styles popular in Europe during the first part of the 20th century.

On wide, sycamore-lined Daxue Road, the Qingdao Art Museum is an eclectic-style building with Roman columns and an Art Deco roof line, and a handsome Art Nouveau structure now part of Ocean University of China, the country's foremost center for the study of marine sciences.

Beyond Shi Laoren, or Old Man Rock, the city thins out as the Laoshan Mountain reach the sea in precipitous cliffs, boulder heaps and crevices giving toeholds to gnarled pines. Celebrated in classical poetry and scroll painting, the coast north of Qingdao attracted sages of Taoism, an ancient faith inspired by nature.

The old stone Tsingtao brewery in the heart of old Qingdao, has a museum and tasting room. The Germans started it in 1903 chiefly to slake the thirst of their sailors and soldiers. They imported turn-of-the-last-century machinery, plus ingredients and recipes from the homeland and put the landmark Qingdao Bay pagoda on the label.