Hanoi's French Quarter

South and east of the lake, Hanoi changes shape. The tangle of the Old Quarter gives way to a grid of wide streets planted with tamarind and plane trees, laid out during the French decades and still largely intact. The opera house of 1911 anchors one end, a scaled-down cousin of the Paris original, and around it stand old bank and ministry buildings in ochre stucco. Behind them run streets of two-storey villas with louvred shutters, iron balconies and deep verandas, some restored as offices or missions, others subdivided and shabby with wiring strung across their faces. There is no route to follow here. The point is to walk Phan Dinh Phung, Tran Hung Dao and Ly Thuong Kiet slowly.

What you actually see

• The opera house - a 1911 theatre with a columned front and a broad flight of steps, floodlit at night.
• Phan Dinh Phung street - the most photographed avenue in the city, heavy with trees and old walls.
• Villa streets - two-storey houses with shutters, balconies and courtyard walls, in every state from restored to crumbling.
• St Joseph's Cathedral - a grey neo-Gothic front of 1886 on the quarter's western edge, hemmed in by cafes.

When to go

October to April is the walking season, with cool mornings and the dry haze that suits tree-lined streets. Avoid the middle of a summer afternoon. Weekday mornings are calmer than evenings, when the whole quarter fills with parked motorbikes and pavement seating. Two or three hours on foot covers the main streets at an easy pace.

Honest expectations

There is no single sight here and almost no signage, so the appeal depends on whether you enjoy looking at buildings. Many villas are in poor repair, hidden behind cables and shopfronts, or closed to the public. Pavements are parked solid with motorbikes, which pushes you into the traffic. The opera house interior is normally open only to ticket holders.

Nearby

Hoan Kiem Lake and the Old Quarter lie immediately north.