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Landmarks & Sights

Thắng cảnh · FAMOUS VIEWS

Sixteen Hanoi sights, one page each, free ones first — eleven cost nothing, and they fall into three walkable clusters.

Hoan Kiem Lake with trees along the water's edge
Photograph by Daderot, Wikimedia Commons, CC0

Sixteen places, one page each. They are ordered the way this site argues the city works: the 11 that cost nothing to enter first, the 5 you buy a ticket for after.

That order is an argument, not a filing convention. Hanoi gives you almost all of itself for nothing. The lake, the entire Old Quarter, the cathedral, the bridge across the Red River, the oldest pagoda in the city and the mausoleum of the man who founded the state are all free to walk into. The five that charge — Ngoc Son, the Temple of Literature, the Imperial Citadel, Hoa Lo Prison and the Museum of Ethnology — charge little.

What Hanoi actually charges you is time. The three clusters are twenty-five minutes apart on foot and considerably more at half past five in the afternoon, and the best museum in the city is seven kilometres from the Old Quarter. ⚠️ The single most expensive mistake here is not an admission — it is arriving at the mausoleum in the afternoon, when it has been shut since lunchtime.

⚠️ Two honest notes on the photographs. Hanoi's colonial-era archive is very large and very well digitised, so several of these sets had to be filtered hard to keep sepia postcards of 1905 out of a page about 2026. And Train Street is photographed here from the public end of the line rather than from between the houses, because standing on that track is exactly what got the cafés closed.

A willow leaning over Hoan Kiem Lake with people walking the path beside itHoan Kiem Lake⭐ Free · open alwaysA street vendor with woven baskets stacked on her bicycle in the Old QuarterThe Old Quarter⭐ Free · the 36 streetsThe Hanoi Opera House with flags flying and traffic crossing in front of itThe French Quarter⭐ Free · walk itThe white ornamental gate of Quan Thanh Temple beside West LakeWest Lake & Tay Ho⭐ Free · the big lakeSunset over the Red River with the Long Bien Bridge in silhouette across itLong Bien Bridge⭐ Free · walk acrossThe twin stone towers of St Joseph's Cathedral above the squareSt Joseph's Cathedral⭐ Free · working churchThe arched front of Dong Xuan Market with flags above the entranceDong Xuan Market⭐ Free · wholesale firstTran Quoc Pagoda rising in red brick tiers above West Lake, with banners along the causewayTran Quoc Pagoda⭐ Free · oldest in HanoiThe One Pillar Pagoda standing on its single stone column above the pondOne Pillar Pagoda⭐ Free · very smallThe Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum along its formal gardens and palmsHo Chi Minh Mausoleum⭐ Free · strict rulesThe railway running between the houses of the Old Quarter, plants along the trackTrain Street⚠️ Free · access restrictedThe scarlet Thê Húc bridge arching over the green water to Ngoc Son TempleNgoc Son TempleTicketed · on the lakeThe Khue Van Cac pavilion at the Temple of Literature, its round windows above the gateTemple of LiteratureTicketed · Vietnam's first universityDoan Mon, the main gate of the Thang Long citadel, with its arched openingsImperial Citadel of Thang LongTicketed · UNESCOThe yellow façade of Hoa Lo Prison with MAISON CENTRALE lettered above the gateHoa Lo PrisonTicketed · heavy goingA Bahnar communal house with its tall thatched roof in the museum groundsMuseum of EthnologyTicketed · worth the taxi

Photographs above, in order, from Wikimedia Commons: Daderot (CC0) · yeowatzup (CC BY 2.0) · Dennis G. Jarvis (CC BY-SA 2.0) · Gary Todd (CC0) · Rungbachduong (CC BY-SA 3.0) · Cookie Nguyen (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Juliana Ng from Singapore (CC BY 2.0) · Jakub Hałun (CC BY 4.0) · Daderot (CC0) · CEphoto, Uwe Aranas (CC BY-SA 3.0) · Rod Waddington from Kergunyah, Australia (CC BY-SA 2.0) · Rolf Müller ( User:Rolfmueller ) (CC BY-SA 3.0) · Đinh Văn Lực (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Phan Minh Tuấn (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Clay Gilliland (CC BY-SA 2.0) · vi:User:Rungbachduong (CC BY-SA 3.0). Each sight page repeats its own credit beside the image.

Hoan Kiem Lake and the Turtle Tower seen across the open water
Photograph by Jorge Láscar from Australia, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

Sixteen places, and eleven of them are free

This site covers sixteen sights in Hanoi, one page each. Eleven of them cost nothing to enter. That ratio is not an accident of what we chose — it is what the city is. The lake, the bridge, the cathedral, the mausoleum, the pagoda on the water and the entire Old Quarter are all free, and the five that are ticketed are ticketed cheaply.

What Hanoi charges you for is not admission. It is time: the traffic, the heat, the rain, and the twenty-five minutes it takes to get from one cluster to the next.

The vaulted nave inside St Joseph's Cathedral looking towards the altar
Photograph by Gryffindor, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

They come in three clusters, and that is how to plan

⚠️ Hoa Lo Prison and Train Street sit between the first two clusters, and the Museum of Ethnology is on its own, seven kilometres west. That museum is the one thing here worth a dedicated half-day and a car in each direction.

The riveted steel trusses of the Long Bien Bridge receding into the distance
Photograph by calflier001, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

The two rules that save a wasted journey

⛔ The mausoleum is mornings only, is traditionally shut on Mondays and Fridays, and closes altogether for several weeks most years while the body is maintained. Check it first and build the day around the answer.

⚠️ Cover your shoulders and knees at the mausoleum, the cathedral and the pagodas. It is enforced at the first two and appreciated at the third.

This section is being written. The guide above is the section for now. New guides go up three times a week, on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, so this page grows steadily — it is worth looking in again. In the meantime the sixteen sight pages and the plans by trip length are finished, and they are the best place to start.

Coming next in this section

  • Eleven Things in Hanoi That Cost Nothing
  • The Three Sight Clusters of Hanoi, and How to Walk Each One
  • What to Wear for the Mausoleum, the Cathedral and the Pagodas
  • Hanoi in the Rain: What Is Still Worth Doing