The Imperial City

We walked along the Perfume River, crossing by the old iron bridge, and went into the Citadel and the Imperial City. You pass through the massive Citadel walls and into a huge square, a great red flag flying from the Flag Tower, and then on, into the Imperial City itself, a sprawling collection of palaces and pagodas in various states of repair. Some, like the red and gold lacquered Thai Hoa Palace, have been fully restored and are quite amazing, though the grassy mounds and blackened walls that surround them make the whole place all the more atmospheric. Also, it’s so big that, whilst the central areas – particularly Thai Hoa and the slightly mad Thai Binh Reading Pavilion, which is like a Palace at Versailles but encrusted with many-coloured ceramic dragons – are very busy with visitors, there are quieter, more tranquil areas further out to wander in. We even found a lovely, peaceful wooden pavilion over a carp pond in the residence of the Queen Mothers out back that just happened to have an empty coffee bar in it. In The afternoon, we took a taxi out to the Tu Duc Mausoleum, one of a series of basically grand pleasure gardens in the Perfume River Valley that the various Nguyen Emperors designed and built to house their own tombs. Later on we had a really good meal at a restaurant called Vi Hue – we had some fabulous grilled clam cakes with pomelo salad and some lovely baby pumpkin, wok-fried with garlic, and even found room for banana flambe, rum and raisin ice cream and egg coffee…