Explore Hanoi

Hỏa Lò Prison was built by the French colonial administration in 1896 as the Maison Centrale, where mainly Vietnamese political prisoners were held. During the Vietnam War it held American prisoners of war, who called it the 'Hanoi Hilton'. Most of it was demolished in 1993–1994; the remaining gatehouse section is a museum of cells, documents and objects.

Hanoi Train Street is a narrow stretch of the railway north of Hanoi Station where trains pass a few metres from the houses on both sides. The line was built by the French in 1902 and the houses were built for railway workers from 1956; cafés along the track now serve visitors, and the police have at times restricted access for safety.

The Temple of Literature is a temple to Confucius in Hanoi, founded in 1070 under Emperor Lý Thánh Tông. From 1076 it housed the Imperial Academy, Vietnam's first national university. Five walled courtyards lead past the Khuê Văn Các pavilion to stone stelae that list the doctoral laureates of the imperial examinations.

The Vietnam National Museum of Fine Arts occupies a 1930s French colonial building opposite the Temple of Literature, built as a boarding house for daughters of French officials and later given Vietnamese decorative details. Opened in 1966, it shows Vietnamese art from prehistory to the 20th century: sculpture, ceramics, folk prints, lacquer and silk painting.

The Imperial Citadel of Thăng Long in Hanoi was the seat of Vietnam's rulers from 1010, when Emperor Lý Thái Tổ founded it, until 1789. The French demolished most of it; visitors see the Đoan Môn gate, the Kính Thiên palace terrace and excavated foundations of earlier palaces. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

St. Joseph's Cathedral is the Catholic cathedral of the Archdiocese of Hanoi, on a small square west of Hoàn Kiếm Lake. Consecrated in 1886 on the site of the former Báo Thiên Pagoda, the Gothic Revival church has two square towers 31 metres high and a façade modelled on Notre-Dame de Paris. Outside Mass, visitors enter through a side door.

Hoàn Kiếm Lake is a freshwater lake of about 12 hectares in the historic centre of Hanoi. Its name, Lake of the Returned Sword, recalls the legend of Emperor Lê Lợi giving his sword back to a golden turtle. The Turtle Tower stands on an islet in the lake, and the red Thê Húc bridge leads to Ngọc Sơn Temple.

Ngọc Sơn Temple stands on Jade Islet in the north of Hoàn Kiếm Lake in Hanoi and is reached by the red wooden Thê Húc bridge. Built in the early 19th century for the scholar deity Văn Xương and other figures, it later added the 13th-century general Trần Hưng Đạo. The Pen Tower and the Ink Slab gate stand at its entrance.

The One Pillar Pagoda is a small Buddhist shrine to the bodhisattva Quan Âm in Hanoi's Ba Đình district, first built by Emperor Lý Thái Tông in 1049. Its wooden hall rests on a single stone pillar rising from a square lotus pond. Blown up in 1954, it was rebuilt in 1955 to its earlier design and belongs to the Diên Hựu pagoda complex.

The Presidential Palace Historical Site in Ba Đình is the compound where Ho Chi Minh lived and worked from 1954 until his death in 1969. Visitors walk the grounds past the yellow palace completed in 1906 for the Governor-General of French Indochina, which is closed inside, to House No. 54, the carp pond and the stilt house he lived in from 1958.

The Hanoi Opera House on August Revolution Square was built by the French colonial administration between 1901 and 1911, modelled on the Palais Garnier in Paris. A rally in front of it on 19 August 1945 started the August Revolution, and it hosted the first sessions of the National Assembly. Restored in 1997, it stages opera, concerts and theatre.

The Vietnam National Museum of History traces the country's past from prehistory to the founding of the Democratic Republic in 1945. Its main building at 1 Tràng Tiền, designed by Ernest Hébrard and completed in 1932 for the French School of the Far East, shows Đông Sơn bronze drums, Champa sculpture and stakes from the Bạch Đằng battles.

Quán Thánh Temple is a Taoist temple near West Lake, dedicated to Huyền Thiên Trấn Vũ, guardian of the north and one of the four guardian temples of old Thăng Long. Founded in the 11th century and restored many times, its present form dates largely from 1836–1838; the main hall holds a bronze statue of Trấn Vũ cast in 1677.

Trấn Quốc Pagoda is a Buddhist temple on a small island near the south-eastern shore of West Lake in Hanoi, linked to the road by a causeway. Founded in the 6th century beside the Red River, it moved to its present site in 1615. The grounds hold monks' stupas, a bodhi tree given by India's president in 1959 and an 11-storey tower built in 1998.

Long Biên Bridge is a steel cantilever bridge of about 2.4 kilometres across the Red River in Hanoi, built in 1899–1902 by the Paris firm Daydé & Pillé and opened in 1903 as the Paul Doumer Bridge. Bombed several times in 1967 and 1972, it was repaired, and today it carries trains, motorbikes, bicycles and pedestrians.