Tianjin has some interesting historical sites. Since Tianjin development was long neglected in favor of Beijing (or so they say), the old foreign concession area was ignored till recently. So instead of it all being bulldozed, a good bit has survived and is now being resuscitated, to a degree. Anyway, there's a few blocks of interesting Japanese/Italian/German architecture from the early 20th c. There are a number of Chinese temples that are not as crowded as in BJ. Also preserved is the Catholic Church where a major riot broke out in 1870 (and the French consul killed) over rumors that nuns and priests were killing Chinese children to use their body parts in concoctions. And now a museum is the Italianate home of Liang Qichao, late Qing intellectual and early Republican intellectual/politician (he lived in Tianjin since he was safer from arrest or assassination there than in Beijing).