Hue, after the night train

Hue was the capital of a unified Vietnam from 1802 until 1945, under the Nguyen dynasty. What survives is a walled citadel on the north bank of the Perfume River, the Imperial City and the remains of the Forbidden Purple City inside it, and a string of royal tombs and pagodas up and down the river. UNESCO inscribed the complex in 1993, describing a capital laid out according to old cosmological principles around the river.

It is also a working provincial city with traffic, students and a lot of noodle shops, and much of the citadel was damaged in the twentieth century. Parts are restored, parts are open ground with foundations, and the gap between the two is part of what you see. If you arrive expecting an intact palace on the scale of Beijing's, you will be disappointed. If you arrive expecting a slow river city with a great deal of history in its walls, you will not.

For an overland trip, Hue matters for another reason: it is the first stop after the night train out of Hanoi, and the last big city before either the road west into Laos or the train south over the Hai Van Pass.

The national tourism authority puts the kindest months at February to the end of April. June and July are hot and humid. The rains start in August and can last into January, and the city often floods from October to the end of the year.

The flood months are not a reason to skip Hue on a long trip, but they are a reason to keep the plan loose: we swap the citadel and tomb days to follow the forecast and keep a spare day.

The train in is the cheapest part. One published guide quotes the whole Hanoi–Saigon line in a soft sleeper at roughly VND 1,026,000 to 1,758,000 per berth, depending on the train and berth; the Hanoi–Hue section is part of that, so less. Check before you travel.

Hotels in Hue cover a wide range, from family guesthouses to larger riverside hotels; we quote by name. Food is inexpensive by any Western measure. Entrance tickets for the citadel and the tombs are sold separately at each site and change from time to time, so we give you the current figures before you go rather than quote old ones.