Hue - Vietnam‘s Royal History

After the magic of Hoi An, we headed 3-4h north to the city of Hue. Hue used to be Vietnam's old capital between 1802-1945, when it was the seat of the Nguyen Dynasty emperors - this is also the reason why many Vietnamese people have Nguyen as their last name. The food scene here is also unique and nicely presented, due to its royal history.

Anyway, we had 2 days here and on the first day, we dug right into the royal history with a tour through the city. We had a total of 7x stops and the royal stops were the most impressive.

We started off by visiting the residency and working place of the emperors at the stunning Citadel that also includes the beautiful Imperial and Forbidden City. After getting some interesting info from our tour guide about Vietnam's royal past, we wandered around the Citadel and basically got lost among its old buildings that were decorated with quite some detailed ornaments.

The other two royal stops that we both liked were the royal tombs of the 2nd and 12th emperor. Sometimes it is hard to believe that they build these massive structures and complexes just for one dead guy. But well, that's life for some apparently.

The other stops included a beautiful pagoda overlooking the river, taking a leisurely dragon boat ride on the river that runs through the city, visiting an old garden house, and finishing off the day on a little mountain that offers nice, but not spectacular views. We also did one more stop at a village that makes incense sticks and I had a go at trying to make one - failed miserably to be honest, so definitely not a career option for me.

On our second day (½ day), we opted to visit an abandoned waterpark at a nearby lake. It was build in 2004, but closed a couple of years later. Since then, nature has taken over. A scary-looking dragon sits in the middle of the lake and is truly impressive. We walked up and visited its mouth, before taking a few pictures in and around it (there is an old car and some abandoned waterslides, too).

After that, it was time to say goodbye to Hue and just like that, we were on our way to Phong Nha, the caving capital of Vietnam.Läs mer