Huế

October 2025

After our sunny and luxurious cruise ended, we took a short flight south from Hanoi to coastal Huế. Huế used to be the capital of Vietnam, it’s full of historic buildings, the old royal palace and numerous tombs of the emperors.

We spent a full day exploring the enormous Imperial City (Dai Noi), another impressive UNESCO world heritage site.

Joel was following a local food bloggers restaurant recommendations, https://www.vietnamcoracle.com/hue-food-guide/ and so we had fun finding and trying out all the special local dishes. The cuisine was quite different to what we’d eaten in Vietnam so far and was delicious - my favourite was a crunchy rice dish with tiny clams and a spicy fish soup made with flat noodles.

Cơm Hến (clam rice)

Bún Bò Huế (beef noodles)

Trà Cung Đình Huế (royal tea)

Frog!

Making the fish noodles

Bánh Canh Cá Lóc (fish noodles)

We took a small boat down the river to see the Thiên Mụ Pagoda, a Bhuddist temple and local landmark.

My favourite day was when we rented an electric scooter (max speed 40km/hr), donned our plastic floral rain ponchos and drove forty-five minutes through torrential rain to get to the tomb of Gia Long (1762-1820), first emperor of the final imperial dynasty to rule in Vietnam. When we arrived, we rented bicycles to explore the large park and multiple shrines. The storm continued to worsen, complete with thunder and lightning. We cycled along squeakily, rain ponchos flapping in the wind. In an attempt to keep the rain off my glasses, I clutched my umbrella and cycled one handed. The result was rather wobbly and still misty eyed.

Then Joel made a comment on how great it was that we were the only people there. It suddenly reminded me of my family camping holidays in Cornwall. Despite the heavy Cornish rain and stormy seas, we would dress in bin bags to go sit on the beach and then my mum would invariably gesture largely around and say, “Isn’t this wonderful darlings! We have the whole beach to ourselves!”

And it was true, it was wonderful. I’ll never forget exploring the emperor's tomb, silent except for the sound of our wobbly bicycles, the rain and the rolling thunder.