The Imperial City in Hue, and what survived the wars

Hue was the capital of Vietnam for a century and a half, and the palace complex at its centre is a fraction of what stood there in 1945. What survives is worth a morning, provided you know you are walking through a ruin rather than a museum.

What is inside the walls?

The Hue Imperial City is a walled palace complex inside the larger citadel, built from 1804 and used by the Nguyen emperors until the dynasty ended in 1945. Its main axis runs from the Ngo Mon gate through the Thai Hoa throne palace to the Purple Forbidden City beyond.

The Purple Forbidden City, the emperor's private quarter, is mostly gone. What remains there is foundations, gateways and a few reconstructed halls standing in open ground.

Around them sit the surviving temples, the mandarin halls, the reading pavilion and the Nine Dynastic Urns. The Hue page covers how the citadel fits the rest of the city.

What does a Hue Imperial City ticket cost?

An adult ticket to the Hue Imperial City is 200,000 dong. The combination ticket at 360,000 dong adds three royal tombs and stays valid for 48 hours, and a four-site version runs 530,000.

Bought separately, the tombs cost 100,000 to 150,000 each, so the arithmetic turns in favour of the combination as soon as you plan to see two. At about 26,000 dong to the US dollar the citadel alone is under eight dollars.

Tickets are sold at the gate and there is rarely a queue. The trip cost guide puts this against the rest of a day in central Vietnam.

Why is so much of it missing?

War took it, in two rounds. The complex was damaged in 1947 during the war against the French, and then fought over for weeks during the Tet offensive in 1968, when the citadel was one of the hardest-contested places in the country.

Of more than a hundred and fifty buildings, a few dozen survive in any form. Bullet and shell damage is still visible on the gates, and nobody has tidied that away.

Restoration has run since UNESCO listed the Complex of Hue Monuments in 1993, and a new hall reopens every few years. The war sites guide covers how the same period is presented elsewhere in the country.

What should you actually look at?

Start at Ngo Mon, the gate with the pavilion on top, and walk the axis. Thai Hoa palace behind it holds the throne and the lacquered columns, and it is the single most complete interior on the site.

After the throne room, take the side routes rather than the straight line. The Dien Tho residence, the To Mieu temple and the Nine Dynastic Urns in front of it are quieter and better preserved than anything on the main path.

The far end is open ground with foundations and a few reconstructions. Read it as an archaeological site rather than a palace, and it becomes interesting rather than disappointing.

When should you go?

First thing in the morning, when the gates open around seven. The complex is mostly open ground and Hue runs above 35°C in the summer months, with little shade between buildings.

Tour groups arrive from about nine, working the same axis in the same order. Starting at the far end and walking back is an easy way to miss them.

The wet season from September to December turns the courtyards into puddles and the walk into a wade. The best time to visit guide covers what that season does to central Vietnam generally.

How does it fit with the tombs?

The citadel is the morning and a tomb is the afternoon, which is the standard Hue day. The royal tombs sit 4 to 16 km out along the Perfume river, and two of them make a comfortable half day by car or bike.

Khai Dinh is the most ornate and the most photographed; Minh Mang is the largest and the calmest; Tu Duc is the one to pick if you only see one. The two days in Hue route sets out which order works.

Buy the combination ticket before leaving the citadel if you intend to see more than one. It is sold at the same window.

Is it worth a day of a short trip?

For a first trip through central Vietnam, yes — a morning of it. Hue is the one place in the country where the imperial period is legible on the ground, and the citadel is the centre of that.

For anybody who has seen the great intact palace complexes elsewhere in Asia, this will read as a ruin with a car park. That is a fair description, and the ruin is the point: the damage is part of what the site now documents.

Pair it with a bowl of bun bo Hue at seven in the morning and the day makes sense. The city's food is the other half of what people come for.