The elegant colonial district south of the lake — wide, leafy boulevards of grand French villas, the Opera House, upscale hotels and smart cafés and shops. Calmer, more spacious and more expensive than the Old Quarter, an easy walk from it; the refined base, with the city's history written in its architecture.
A look around
What you’ll be living next to. Swipe through.
€100–220
typical per night in Vietnam
You pay for the postcode
One of the pricier addresses in Hanoi.
Where it sits
The circle is French Quarter and roughly a 10-minute walk around it.
How far is everything?
From the middle of this area to the city's headline sights — pick your own on the city page and these become your list.
- Hoan Kiem Lake & Ngoc Son Temple7 min walk598 m
- Egg coffee11 min walk932 m
- Bún chả & street food14 min walk1.1 km
- The Old Quarter's 36 streets15 min walk1.3 km
- Bia hơi on Ta Hien16 min walk1.3 km
- Train Street17 min walk1.5 km
- The Temple of Literature26 min walk2.2 km
- The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum8 min taxi2.6 km
On your doorstep
What you’re living next to if you stay here.
- 10.St Joseph's Cathedral — A weathered neo-Gothic cathedral of 1886, its twin grey stone towers looking like a miniature, blackened Notre-Dame dropped into the tropics — the heart of a buzzing café-and-boutique quarter on the edge of the Old Quarter. Sit at a pavement café opposite with an iced tea and watch the world go by.
- 11.Hoa Lo Prison — The grim colonial-era prison, sardonically nicknamed the 'Hanoi Hilton' by the American POWs later held here — a stark, moving museum of Vietnam's struggle against French rule and the war that followed. Harrowing and one-sided, but a powerful and essential piece of the country's history.
- 13.The Hanoi Opera House — A grand, cream-and-yellow colonial opera house of 1911, modelled on the Palais Garnier in Paris — the elegant centrepiece of the French Quarter. Admire the facade from the square, or catch a performance of classical music, opera or traditional Vietnamese arts inside its plush, gilded auditorium.
When are you staying?
Booking.com & Airbnb open searched to French Quarter; flights via Google Flights.