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Day One - West Lake and Trúc Bạch Lake > Ba Đình Square > Temple of Literature > lunch at Quan An Ngon > Old Quarter with Đồng Xuân Market walk > water puppet performance > dinner at Highway 4 > optional walk around Hoàn Kiếm Lake or after dinner drinks.  Note:  Some of these activities are offered as optional extensions, depending on how early you begin your day, how ambitious you are, and how well you hold up in the summer heat.

West Lake, Trúc Bạch Lake extension:  Start your morning early, and take a taxi to the top of đường Thanh Niên, between West Lake and Trúc Bạch Lake.  This area used to be the edge of town, but as the city has grown, it is now part of central Hanoi.   If you must have your morning coffee, head to the top deck of the floating Highlands Coffee on West Lake.  Soak in life on the lakes on both sides as you wander down Đường Thanh Niên.  If you have time, take a detour around Ngũ Xã Village, located on a small peninsula on the east side of Trúc Bạch Lake.  Step inside the tranquil shaded courtyard of Quan Thánh Pagoda, at the bottom of đường Thanh Niên, then continue south on Hùng Vương Street past the Presidential Palace to Ba Đình Square.

Soak in the expansive Ba Đình Square and imposing Hồ Chí Minh Mausoleum.  If you arrive between 8AM and 11AM, Tuesday-Thursday, or on the weekend, you can go inside to pay your respects to Uncle Hồ.  The viewing is free, but you’ll still need to stop by the bag check and wait in line to be escorted in.  If you a not a fan of the embalmed look, visit Hồ Chí Minh’s residence instead, including his wooden stilt house and gardens.  The residence is open daily between 7:30AM and 4PM, but closes for lunch between 11AM and 1:30PM.  Another quick but interesting stop in this area is the Chùa Một Cột (One Pillar Pagoda).   

If the weather is nice, consider walking from Ba Đình Square to the Temple of Literature.  Walk down Điện Biên Phủ, say hello to Lenin’s statue in the small park directly across from the Army Museum, then head West on Trần Phú Street.  Turn left at phố Hoàng Diệu, then right on either Cao Bá Quát or Nguyễn Thái Học; head straight down (South) phố Văn Miếu, which runs along the eastern wall of the Temple of Literature.  Near the end of the street, you will see Craft Link, KOTO, and Phở 24 on your left.  Turn right along the wall and you will see the main entrance of the Temple of Literature immediately on your right.  Approximate walking time:  30 minutes.  If it’s hot or if you want to save some time, take a taxi. Driving time:  < 10 minutes

Rest stops: Stop to enjoy a coffee or cool drink at Highlands Coffee under the trees just inside the walls of the Army Museum, on Điện Biên Phủ.  Or, wait until you arrive at the Temple of Literature and either duck into KOTO to enjoy a coffee or fruit shake, or snack on a bowl of phở at Phở 24, both around the corner from the main entrance. 

Soak up the history, quiet gardens, traditional architecture and scholarly atmosphere at the Temple of Literature (Văn Miếu).  Rub the head of a stone tortoise supporting the scholars stellae for luck in studies.  And keep on going through the series of courtyards and buildings until you reach the one with the museum (of sorts) inside, flanked by bell and drum towers.  To get to this last area, you’ll have to skirt around the actual temple structure on a narrow walkway.   Note:  Don’t buy anything (except maybe postcards) in the gift shop at the Temple of Literature, or you will pay at least 10 times more than just about anywhere else.

If you have time before you move on to lunch, stop by Craft Link (note: they close for lunch between 12:15 and 1:15PM), also on Văn Miếu Street, just a few yards up from KOTO and Phở 24, which is a quality non-profit handicraft cooperative offering great one stop shopping for a range of tableware and house wares.

Explore the Old Quarter on foot (or by pedicab, but you’ll have a lot more flexibility to nose around if you are on foot). You can pretty much make your own route through the narrow winding streets of Hanoi’s Old Quarter.  Of the guidebooks, Insight Guide’s Hanoi book offers the best detailed descriptions of different walking routes with an excellent accompanying map.  Even without a map, it’s a very small city, so you can wander at will and if you get lost, just ask for Hồ Hoàn Kiếm (Hoàn Kiếm Lake) and people will point you back toward the lake. 

Since the Old Quarter is so extensive, you might spend this first afternoon walking around Hoàn Kiếm Lake, visiting Ngọc Sơn Temple, exploring the area north of lake (west of Lương Văn Can) and if you have time, also do some shopping in the Hàng Gai, Hàng Trống, Nhà Thờ are due west of the lake.  Though if you have the stamina, you could try to explore it all in an afternoon, we’ve saved the quadrant of the Old Quarter that fans west between Lương Văn Can and Hàng Gai for Day Two.

Đồng Xuân Market extension:  Take a quick peek inside to see how a wholesale market works in Vietnam, but more interesting is the area around the outside of the market and its alleyways, where you can sample a wide array of street snacks in the narrow Ngõ Đồng Xuân, see a very local market and street industry at work along Nguyễn Thiện Thuật and Thanh Hà (?) Streets, and you can poke your head into Chùa Huyen Tuyen, a small neighborhood pagoda, or browse the alleys behind Hàng Khoai for cut rate and sometimes unusual kitchen gear. I bought the best pair of kitchen shears (cuts through pretty much everything) here for 12,000 Dong, and a set of 10 pairs (though I only needed one) of great long cooking chopsticks for 20,000 Dong.  And I probably overpaid.  Note:  Be sure to print out the detailed Đồng Xuân Market Walk map to help you navigate

Do not miss the local Hàng Bè Market that runs east-west on a small alley between Hàng Bè and Đinh Liệt, parallel to and between Hàng Bạc and Cầu Gỗ.  It is one of the best open air markets, selling all manners of produce, fruit, live seafood, various dried and pickled things, and also tasty little snack bites.  Thankfully, this market does not have the piles of whole roasted dogs (those are in the 19-12 Market, you’ve been warned).  Also take the time to wander over the little red arched bridge to Ngọc Sơn Temple at the northeast corner of Hoàn Kiếm Lake.  Besides soaking up the busy street scenes, fascinating store fronts and French colonial architectural details in the Old Quarter, there is also shopping for local trinkets and handicrafts on pretty much every street and corner.   

Snacks throughout Old Quarter:  ốc on Đinh Liệt near Hàng Bạc; bánh rán on Lý Quốc Sư next to Nhà Thờ; sinh tố at the corner of Tô Tịch near the top of Hàng Gai; bánh trôi on Hàng Giầy, near Hàng Buồm; bánh cuốn on Hàng Bồ near Lương Văn Can; bún đậu from a roving basket lady; bún chả at no. 20 Tạ Hiền (recommendation courtesy of Noodlepie).  Snacks on the street are ubiquitous in Hanoi so be curious and take a risk.  Chances are, whatever you see will only cost a few thousand Dong, so if it looks interesting, have a taste!

Barebones shopping geography:  North of the lake, you can find all you need and more without going further from the Hàng Bè, Hàng Bạc, Đinh Liệt, Cầu Gỗ loop.  For those interested in propaganda art, there are two shops north of the lake, one on Hàng Bạc (between Hàng Ngang and Đinh Liệt, on the north side) and the other on Cầu Gỗ (between Hàng Bè and the alley leading to the Hàng Bè market, on the north side). There is another interesting propaganda art store near St. Joseph Cathedral.  Facing the cathedral, head left on Nhà Chung street; keep your eyes peeled on the same side of the street as the church.  You will see a small sign and a small metal spiral staircase in a small recessed area.  Head up the stairs and you’ll find the shop. Don’t mistake the run of the mill propaganda poster shop across the street for this place. 

Rest stops in the Old Quarter:  Slogging through Hanoi’s frenetic streets and sometimes earsplitting traffic will take its toll on you.  Sneak up to the top floor of the Secret Café at the head of Hàng Gai, or rest your feet and clear your head at Hapro Coffee (formerly Highlands Coffee) on Hoàn Kiếm Lake.  Small cafes and restaurants are also dotted around St. Joseph Cathedral.  To escape inside but keep an eye on the activity below, head upstairs to Highlands Coffee or Legends Beer at the top of Hoàn Kiếm Lake, on the east side of the traffic circle.  A seat on the balcony will offer a mesmerizing perspective on the vehicular chaos below.  If you opt to stay on the street, stop and try a local bia hơi anywhere you see a plastic keg (yellow on both ends, with a green belly); there’s usually a small sign propped nearby indicating the price per glass. (1,500-3,000 Dong)

Highway 4 (Hàng Tre or Mai Hắc Đế locations). If you are exploring the Old Quarter, you may want visit the Hàng Tre restaurant, since you can walk over.  Approximate walking time:  10 minutes from the traffic circle at the top of Hoàn Kiếm Lake

Enjoy a walk around Hoàn Kiếm Lake, observing the night life and traffic around the lake.  You’ll see dancing or aerobics in front of the statue of Lý Thái Tổ, hordes of young couples huddled together on the backs of motorbikes.  If it’s summer, stop at Fanny’s Ice Cream, across from the Hapro Coffee on the southwest corner of Hoàn Kiếm Lake, to sample some lychee, durian, or soursop sorbet (the dark chocolate is also excellent).  Estimated time for an idle lap around the lake:  45 minutes to one hour. 

Or, watch the action through the giant plate glass window from the bar of Bobby Chinn’s.  To escape the din entirely, retreat for a quiet drink at the Ly Club, or Le Club Bar in the Sofitel Metropole Hotel.  Check our Night Life in Hanoi page for more late night options.

Indulge your culinary curiosity.  If you’re thinking about how you might recreate some of the tastes and dishes you’ve been having in Hanoi once you return home, roll up your sleeves and grab a cleaver.  There are three main options for spending half a day learning to cook some of your Vietnamese favorites at a local cooking class.

Option 1:  Hidden Hanoi offers the best broad introduction to Vietnamese culinary culture.  It is a small company run by a few Vietnamese and expat partners whose mission is to share their knowledge and love of Vietnam with visitors to Hanoi.  In addition to cooking classes, they also offer survival Vietnamese language classes and a variety of walking tours.  Classes are fully participatory and although each student prepares ingredients for a different dish, the whole class watches as each dish is cooked and of course you get to sample all of the dishes over a shared lunch.  There is no guided market visit in this program but if you choose to pair this class with a walking tour, you can request a market visit as part of that program.   

Hidden Hanoi classes are held Mondays to Saturdays, 11 am – 2 pm, with a choice of various menus. Rate: $30 per person with an 8 person limit.  For booking, email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it  or call +84 (0) 91 225 4045.  Their cooking facilities are located on the dike road at No. 137 Nghi Tam, between the Sofitel Plaza and Xuan Dieu, near the large Honda dealership.  http://www.hiddenhanoi.com.vn/

Option 2:  A cooking class at Highway 4 gives you the chance to try your hand at some of Highway 4’s delicious favorites, including their famous catfish spring rolls.  Their cooking class also advertises a short cyclo ride through town on the way to a market visit at either Chợ Hàng Bè or Chợ Hôm, two famous neighborhood markets, although the morning I attended we walked to the market.  The class is participatory and has the added advantage of starting early in the morning, so while you have a shared lunch to sample your cooking, the class wraps up at noon and gives you a full afternoon to explore the city. 

Highway 4 classes can be arranged every morning from 8AM – noon.  Rates:  $32-$19 per person, depending on group size, with a 10 person limit.  Classes used to be held at Highway 4’s Mai Hắc Đế location, but are currently held at the Kim Ma location, with the Hang Tre location as the initial meeting point before the market visit.  For booking and latest information, email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or call +84 (04) 715 0577. http://www.highway4.com/en/cooking.html

Option 3:  The Sofitel Metropole Hotel offers top quality dining experiences at both Le Beaulieu and Spices Garden, and presents a first class cookery option.  This experience also begins with a cyclo ride from the hotel to Chợ Âm Phủ, or the 19-12 Market.  Here, with the head chef of Spices Garden as your guide, you will learn about Vietnamese herbs and ingredients before heading back to the Metropole’s kitchen.  While this class has participatory elements, there was a heavier focus on demonstration by the chef.  The advantage is that you get to experience six dishes instead of the usual three or four.  The Metropole class menus include more sophisticated dishes such as pork cooked in bamboo, and stuffed crab with mushrooms.  In lieu of a self-cooked lunch, the class moves over to Spices Garden for a sampler feast prepared by the restaurant; the afternoon class (the only afternoon option for classes) includes dinner at Spices Garden.

Satisfy your cultural appetite.  The Museum of Ethnology (west of downtown Hanoi, closed Mondays) has had extended international grants and assistance and is considered the best curated museum in Vietnam.  There are extensive displays of ethnic minority clothing, tools, homes and other artifacts. Don’t miss the outdoor displays, which are a work in progress and to date, include full size replicas of traditional structures of different minority such as an Ê-đê communal long houses, a Tày stilt house, and Gia Rai burial tomb.  Driving time:  25-30 minutes from the Sofitel Metropole Hotel.  There is also a Craft Link store on the grounds of the museum.

For those interested in Vietnam’s history of hostilities and warfare, your next stops are the Army Museum on Điện Biên Phủ, and the “Hanoi Hilton” Prisoner of War Museum (or Maison Centrale to the French) on west side of Hanoi Towers complex.  Many visitors give a chuckle at the propagandistic nature of the displays and captions, but be aware that they still very much represent the official Vietnamese view of the world.  At the Army Museum, which includes a prolific assortment of military equipment including missiles, tanks, and wreckage from a US B52 bomber and a French plane that were shot down by the Vietnamese, pay the extra fee to climb up and enjoy the views from the top of the flag tower. 

Note:  Which and how many of these museums you visit will depend entirely on your interest, how early you start your day, and how packed you want your morning to be.  And if you opt for the cooking class in the morning, you can always choose the museum visits in place of the city walks for your afternoon.

If you aren’t feasting on the food you’ve just cooked in your cooking class for lunch and have instead been getting a taste of Vietnamese history and culture at the museums, enjoy a quiet and elegant lunch with French influences in the courtyard or inside the tiny villa at Green Tangerine. 

Get lost in and graze through the Old Quarter:  Meandering through the west side of the Old Quarter— You might start by walking down Hàng Gai to Hàng Mành, turn up Hàng Mành until you reach Yen Thai, a very narrow alley  on your left.  Take this alley through to Hàng Điếu.  Explore Hàng Da Market, across the traffic circle, and then start heading up Hàng Điếu, stopping at the temple on the corner of Bát Đàn temple, to Hàng Vải (with the vertical walls of bamboo).  Turn right to Thuốc Bắc, head north to Hàng Lược, then make a sharp right to head down Chả Cá. 

Snackables:  Hàng Điếu Street - bánh cuốn (also on Hàng Bồ), bún bò Nam Bộ, chè or tàu phớ or crepes at Cyclo Bar, bánh chuối. Hàng Bông/Hàng Gai:  bún riêu, nem rán, bún đậu, sinh tố.

Rest stops:  Secret café at the top of Hàng Gai; Baguette et Chocolate (café branch of Hoa Sua Vocational School) on no. 11 Chả Cá Street.

OR,

Survey Hanoi’s contemporary art scene:  Use our Art Gallery Highlights to take a self-guided tour of some of the key galleries around Hanoi and get an overview of Hanoi’s contemporary art scene.  As a contrast to what you will see in the galleries, you might begin your tour at the Hanoi Fine Arts Museum (66 Nguyễn Thái Học St at the corner of Cao Bá Quát; closed Mondays) to see the government’s officially approved brand of ‘fine art’, which tends to have a healthy dose of socialist realism.  If you are interested in more alternative art venues, or in ethnic minority art and other cultural relics, visit 54 Traditions and Duc’s Stilt House.  Check the Old Quarter walk for rest stops along the way.  Finish your art tour at Hanoi Studio near the Opera House; head around the corner onto Hai Bà Trưng and relax with a drink at the Hanoi Cinemateque courtyard, or if it’s super hot, escape to the cool refuge of Le Club Bar in the Sofitel Metropole Hotel. 

OR,

Soak in Hanoi’s colonial roots:  Give yourself a break from the hectic, narrow, winding streets of the Old Quarter and take a more idyllic walk through the tree lined boulevards of the French Quarter south and east of Hoàn Kiếm Lake.  The Hanoi Opera House and the History Museum are two highlights of Parisian style buildings the French left behind in their colonial capital.  A careful look at the rooflines and building details on Tràng Tiền Street will also reveal some great art deco gems.  Many of the buildings on Lý Thường Kiệt and Trần Hưng Đạo are beautiful French or Baroque style villas.  Sit at one of the many local cafes lining the wide sidewalks on the south side of Lý Thường Kiệt.  Or continue your walk south down Hàng Bài/Phố Huế to enjoy the local café culture on Triệu Việt Vương.  Check your guidebook for more details on key historic French colonial buildings.

Join the locals for a delicious dinner street side.  Head to Lý Văn Phúc Street for a whole alley filled with crispy, savory, sweet and spicy grilled chicken wings and thighs (Gà Nướng). Oh, and feet of course, it’s the local favorite.  Or if you are feeling like a so-fresh-it’s-still-kicking seafood dinner (hải sản tươi), head to Tống Duy Tân pedestrian street and find our favorite seafood lady at stall no. 6.  If you opted to walk South this afternoon and find yourself lingering over a coffee on Triệu Việt Vương, then head just a bit further south to Tô Hiến Thành Street for your seafood feast.

Digging the local scene?  Grab a bia hơi at one of the spots in our list or go see how the Vietnamese do microbrew at Bia Đỏ (Red Beer) on Mã Mây Street in the Old Quarter.  You can also keep on grazing and satisfy your carnivorous side with beer and sườn nướng (ribs) on the sidewalk at the intersection of Hàng Giầy/Hàng Buồm in the Old Quarter. 

OR,

For something a little different, escape inside and upscale for a round of decadent desserts and a bottle of wine at Vine. Driving time:  < 20 minutes, from Lý Văn Phúc or Tống Duy Tân.  Check our Night Life in Hanoi page for more late night options.

Even with just a few days to explore Hanoi and its environs, many people hope to spend one day out at Halong Bay.  If you have three days on the ground, you can easily use this 48 Hour Itinerary to structure your time in Hanoi, and use one day to experience Halong Bay.  This is a three plus hour drive outside of Hanoi, which allows for a half day tour of the bay on a boat or junk of your choice, including a seafood lunch on board, and stops to explore some small islands.  Prices vary widely and will be reflected in the type of boat, quality of food served at lunch, and quality of your guide.  Trips generally return to Hanoi in time for dinner, but if you are flying out on your third evening, you may be safer arranging your excursion on Day Two.  See Travel Resources for more information on tour operators.

Most international flights have a late night departure out of Nội Bài Airport.  Allow an hour for the drive to the airport, just to be safe.  The same companies that run airport taxis from the airport also have fixed rates for rides out to the airport.  Note that it costs more for a ride out than a ride in.  Keep a card from the company if you are satisfied with the trip.  Keep a card from the company if you are satisfied with your trip in, and be sure to call a day ahead to book a pick up at your hotel.