The Imperial City of Huế ?

Day 31. After staying in Northern Vietnam for a month I decided to finally move South. I still had a wound on my foot so I thought it would probably be better to stay away from harsh nature. That’s why my next stop was Huế, there I wouldn’t have to worry about hiking in the jungle and could simply get a taxi in case something went wrong.

I arrived at about 6AM on a bus from Hanoi, it took about 13 hours to get there. Night buses are generally quite exhausting, so after checking into my homestay I took a short nap. Quickly though I decided not to stay in town for too long. I wanted to change my flight back to Europe and I could only do that in Hanoi or Saigon – where they had booking offices – so I was in a bit of a rush to reach the South. Of course, I could have done that the day before in Hanoi but it was only after my nap that I convinced myself to pay the extra mile and change the flight.

I was a bit short on time here so I went straight to what Huế is best known for.

The Imperial City

To summarize it shortly, the Imperial City is a walled palace in the city of Huế, which was the former imperial capital of Vietnam. It spans about two square kilometers. Out of the 160 original buildings only 10 major sites remain because of a massive battle during the Vietnam War.

If you want to know more about the history of this impressive place, you can read further details on Wikipedia.

For now, I’ll leave you with a few of my impressions.

Entrance gate to the Imperial City.

Dragon Statue overlooking the Imperial City.

Kỳ Đài, flag tower of the Imperial City.

As I only stayed in Huế for one night I can’t really judge too much about the city. It seemed like a nice, livable town. Not too much traffic, thus quite low pollution. Not too noisy and not too big, easily walkable. If you’re on a trip through Vietnam and short on time I’d say one night is well enough. Otherwise I’d definitely stay longer to visit some places further outside, like the abandoned waterpark, or going on a dragon boat tour on the Perfume River.

My plan was to move directly on to Hội An the next day, which was one of the destinations I was most excited about in Vietnam!

View from my homestay in Huế