Exploring Hue's citidel, imperial city and forbidden purple city

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In Hanoi, we weighed up our onward travel options and decided on a North - South open bus ticket... 6 stops, about 1,200km, flexible dates - £30.

The first stop after a 15 hour overnight sleeper bus was Hue, a nice first stop with an easy to navigate new town, south of the river and main attraction old citidel north of the river. The 19th century citidel area is contained within a moat and city wall and is accessed by one of the 10 gates the most popular being on the southern side nearest the main hotels and restaurants (handy). Within the city wall are a further 2 concentric areas; the imperial city and the purple forbidden city. The imperial city is within another moat and defensive wall and entered through an impressive 5 gate structure with highly decorated pavillion roof and watch tower. According to the guide books, the central gate was only used by the emperor himself with 2 gates for civil and military mandarins and the 2 outside gates for royal elephants... this is where the imagination takes over and starts to enjoy the sites. Much of the city was sadly destroyed in the war and only 20 buildings remain but the tumbled down ruins, maze like pathways and hidden bits of moat make it a fun place to explore particularly since the place is very quiet and serene and surprisingly not overrun with people. We decided this would make a great hide and seek location (in fact paintballing was mentioned). A long term renovation programme is in slow progression for the whole of the imperial city but for now just the impressive Thai Hoa Palace which was used for major ceremonies and a few temples and pavillions are up to scratch showing off their red and gold embellishments. The forbidden purple city is behind another low wall and was the reserved residence of the emperor but is now mostly ruins providing further exploration opportunities.

Our entrance ticket included a visit to the museum of antiquities which was a short (free) taxi car ride away. The contents included a selection of royal possessions including mother of pearl inlaid teak bed, sideboard and other furniture (the quality of which caught even my eye and interest and i've had a skinful of exposure to antiques in my modest years). There was also several collections of offerings from Vietnam's overseas friends and we played guess the nation for a couple of cabinets including willow pattern dinnerware from the UK.

Amongst the few streets we wondered in the new part of town we found some nice places to eat and our hotel was one of number of nice options but we after seeing the citidel we were confident we could move on.

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