Midsummer is a splendid season in Qingdao, a coastal city. If you’d like to take a Citywalk in Qingdao, there are an increasing number of new fascinating “green” routes for you to choose. You can stroll along coastal greenways to see that the sea and green trees set off each other and to appreciate the utter charm of the “garden city by the bay”. You can either pass through Fushan Mountain and Wushan Mountain, hike around mountains which are “green lungs of the city”, place yourself in a high position to overlook the city and the sea and have a panoramic view of the city.

Thanks to Qingdao’s unremitting efforts to pave greenways in recent years, citizens and tourists can hike amid “lucid waters and lush mountains”, a new traveling experience. From the beginning of 2022 to the end of June 2024, Qingdao has paved 205 kilometers of coastal greenways, 14.5 kilometers of greenways through the urban area and 43.4 kilometers of greenways surrounding the three mountains.

The Taiping Mountain Greenway links up Zhongshan Park, the zoo, the botanical garden and Julin Park, while the Fushan Mountain Greenway connects Shinan, Shibei and Laoshan districts and is emerging as a new cultural tourism scenario in Qingdao as multiple landscape nodes are designed along the greenway.

In April this year, the first Qingdao women’s jogging event amid oriental cherries was held in Taiping Mountain Central Park. The number of contestants available was fully occupied in less than 24 hours since registration began. In June, the Qingdao Urban Park Festival was launched in the Taiping Mountain Central Park, where more than 60 colorful activities including the meadow yoga party, the forest film carnival and the park music festival were held.

Nowadays, natural science education, horticultural fairs, art exhibitions, cultural saloons, music parties and hikes are launched on a normal basis in Fushan Mountain and Taiping Mountain. Noteworthy is that a new landscape integrating lush mountains and greenways is unfolding slowly. Coastal greenways, which have a combined length of 265 kilometers, will be connected together, starting eastward from Liuqing River in Laoshan District, surrounding Jiaozhou Bay via the main urban areas and ending westward at Guzhenkou in the West Coast New Area.  (Liu Dong)

Climb along greenways to the top of Wushan Mountain to have a panoramic view.  By Liu Dong

Photo 5. The costal greenway in Qingdao “Houhai” emerges as a new tourism leisure area. By Zhao Jianpeng