Hue, the city around the citadel

Our further journey takes us to Hue. Hoi An, Danang and Hue are very close to each other and yet they are all different.

Hue is visibly smaller than Danang. We are here for two days again. We are starting to realize that we have seen enough temples and pagodas. The biggest main attraction of the city is the old citadel, an ancient imperial palace. There are also a few tombs in the vicinity of the city, which we do not visit.

The Citadel of Hue was the former residence of the emperors of the Vietnamese Nguyễn Dynasty in the former capital. The citadel contains an imperial palace modeled after the Forbidden City in Beijing and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Here we especially like the beautiful garden with many bonsais.

We ride our bike a little bit out of the city and pass by beautiful rice fields. Our ride takes us to a small inconspicuous bridge. We enjoy nature and the green. We pass by many rural villages, come across bathing water buffaloes, a duck farm and karaoke bars. Suddenly we are back in the noisy city from the country road. Nature and civilization are so close together.

There is also a Night Market here. However, it is very small. Unfortunately, we do not have the best luck with food. We try a kind of stuffed omelette and spring rolls. The latter are cold and filled mostly with salad and crunchy pork. We are increasingly inclined towards vegetarian food. Firstly, because of the treatment of animals that we unfortunately see here and secondly, the meat is just not as good as ours. But that's not a big deal. We usually find vegetarian options and if not, we'll just have chicken.

Our journey now takes us to the far north of Vietnam. We take the night train to Sapa via Hanoi.