Hanoi French Quarter walking tours
Hanoi Opera House looks straight out of Paris
Getting under the skin of Hanoi is all about unlocking the city's secrets, and French Quarter is a great place to start. While the Old Quarter is understandably where tourists tend to flock first, Hanoi’s French Quarter is almost unique amongst historic Asian capitals and fully recognised as a vital constituent of Vietnam's heritage.
Breathtaking monuments to French colonial times are clustered together, a lasting testament to European influence in Southeast Asia and the mixed fortunes this had for the nation’s native inhabitants. Hanoi’s French Quarter boasts many styles of architecture with its art deco legacy one of the most striking.
Indeed, the seductive French-Vietnamese blend was so appealing that is infused not only the culture of Vietnam but can also be in normally cultural-inert Paris, which long priding itself as the trend-setter rather than follower of the globe. But although certain shops, restaurants and museums within the French capital betray Vietnamese sympathies, it is only in the French Quarter of Hanoi where the whispering ceiling fans, louvered windows, dank espressos and tamarind trees betray the former grandeur of colonial conquest.
The elegant Hanoi French Quarter lies to the south of the Old Quarter and east of Hoan Kiem Lake, and is bedecked with grand boulevards and imposing colonial buildings. Construction began in 1883 when the French first arrived in the city, and the wide tree-lined boulevards, fine-dining restaurants, sidewalk cafés and Continental villas are iconic remnants of this age of discover. More on Hanoi's history.
Highlights include the stately Opera House, resembling the neo-Baroque Paris Opera with imported gray slate tiles from France. Built in 1911, and later renovated in the 1990s, this incredible building displays facets of typical Gothic architecture on the door domes coupled with Mosaic characters within the glassed centre room.
The pillared façade is colonial French with balconies overlooking the centre of the city, while the exterior offers a neo-classical design with shuttered windows, tiles friezes and wrought iron balconies. This 900-seat performance venue played host to many touring international artists as well as widely-acclaimed Vietnamese symphonies over the years.
History Museum blends Asian and European styles
While the Hanoi Opera House was once simply a rendezvous for people who loved theatrical performances and music, today it is a popular tourist attraction as well as host to numerous annual symphonies, operas and classical music. More on Hanoi art.
One block east of the Opera House is Hanoi's famous Museum of History, an elaborate combination of French villa and Vietnamese palace. The style was later dubbed ’Neo-Vietnamese’, and the building is well worth spending a few hours exploring with countless exhibits ranging from prehistoric times to the Second World War.
Trang Tien is the main thoroughfare of the French Quarter and remains a busy shopping street with bustling bookshops as well as graceful galleries plus cafés and hotels. This is a great spot to indulge in a little streetfood, with plenty of shops and stall selling Pho noodles, steamed rice pancakes, bun cha barbecued pork, fresh spring rolls and local coffee.
And just around the corner from here is the Buddhist pagoda of Quan Su, which remains the epicentre of Vietnamese Buddhism. Founded in the 17th century, this started life as a small pagoda near the Quan Su government guest house where foreign ambassadors and envoys were hosted after their arrival in the capital.
As most diplomats from neighbouring countries at that time were Buddhist, they came to the pagoda to worship. After the founding of the TonKing Buddhists Association in 1934, it became its office and was rebuilt eight years later to its present form. More on religion in Vietnam.
For dinner there is no more splendid Gallic experience than dining at the impressive Metropole Hotel. Under management of French chain Sofitel who engineered a faultless 1990 renovation, there are intimate sitting rooms decorated in dark wood and adorned with vintage prints, Chinoiserie furniture, silk and orchids. The hotel’s Le Beaulie restaurant is peerless amongst French restaurants in Vietnam, with typical imported French delicacies such as foie gras combined with Oriental flavours for a tremendous fusion of superlative cuisines.
Other delights of the Hanoi French Quarter include l'Espace cultural centre and language school which is funded by the government of France. The Fine Arts Museum on nearby Nguyen Thai Hoc Street boasts galleries devoted to Vietnamese painters from the early 20th century who learned European techniques at Hanoi's École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts.
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