Old Quarter (Hoan Kiem)

A look around

What you’ll be living next to. Swipe through.

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Where it sits

The circle is Old 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.

• St Joseph's Cathedral8 min walk642 m
• Hoa Lo Prison13 min walk1.1 km
• The Hanoi Opera House16 min walk1.4 km
• The Temple of Literature19 min walk1.6 km
• The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum20 min walk1.6 km
• The One Pillar Pagoda21 min walk1.7 km
• West Lake & Tran Quoc Pagoda24 min walk2.0 km

On your doorstep

What you’re living next to if you stay here.

• 1.Hoan Kiem Lake & Ngoc Son Temple — The tranquil green heart of the city — a legend-steeped lake with a red bridge leading to the little Ngoc Son temple on its islet, and a squat old tower rising from the water. Come at dawn for tai chi and joggers, or at night when it's floodlit; the weekend sees the surrounding roads go car-free.
• 2.The Old Quarter's 36 streets — Get gloriously lost in the ancient commercial maze, where each narrow street was once dedicated to a single trade (silk, tin, bamboo, votive paper) and many still are. A sensory overload of motorbikes, street kitchens, shrines and shophouses; just wander, dodge the traffic, and eat as you go.
• 3.Bún chả & street food — Hanoi is a street-food paradise, and bún chả is its signature — grilled pork and herbs in a bowl of sweet-sour broth, with noodles to dunk. Add a bowl of phở for breakfast and a bánh mì on the go; pull up a plastic stool where the locals queue, and eat like a king for a couple of euros.
• 6.Train Street — A narrow residential lane where a working railway runs so close to the houses you could touch the train — locals set up trackside cafés, and the whole street clears just before it thunders through, inches away. A thrilling, only-in-Hanoi photo op; it opens and closes to visitors, so check, and mind the times.
• 7.Egg coffee — A Hanoi invention and a small miracle — a rich, hot coffee topped with a whipped, sweet, custardy egg-yolk foam, like drinking tiramisu. Seek out an old hidden café up a crumbling staircase; served hot or iced, it's the city's most beloved caffeine ritual, and unlike anything you've tried.
• 8.Bia hơi on Ta Hien — Hanoi's nightlife is a plastic stool on a street corner — nowhere more so than 'Beer Street' (Ta Hien), where crowds spill across the road drinking bia hơi, fresh draught beer so cheap it's practically free. Grab a stool, order a glass and a plate of nem, and soak up the buzz; the whole city's night out.
• 9.A water puppet show — A thousand-year-old northern Vietnamese art unique to the region — lacquered wooden puppets dance on a pool of water to live traditional music, telling folk tales of dragons, farmers and fishermen. Touristy but genuinely charming and short; the Thang Long theatre by the lake is the classic spot.
• 14.Dong Xuan Market — Hanoi's biggest covered market, a three-storey warren at the top of the Old Quarter piled high with everything from fabric and clothes to household goods and, around its edges, a famous cluster of street-food stalls. Chaotic and local rather than pretty; come for the food lanes and the sensory overload.