Hue is not only the former imperial city but a burial ground for the emperors, who were building the palaces around the city to live in first and to be used as tombs later, when they die. The three most recommended ones are: Tomb of Tu Duc, Tomb of Minh Mang and Tomb of Khai Dinh, also the Thien Mu Pagoda is worth a visit.
We decided to start with the pagoda and then the tombs as they are the most far away. The Thien Mu Pagoda overlooks the Perfume River and is the official symbol of the city of Hue.
The next stop was the tomb of emperor Tu Duc. He was a very romantic emperor who liked to compose poetry and to draw the surroundings of the palace.
I believe that at least for Tu Duc, the reason to choose Hue as his residence was the fact that the rainy weather was a perfect set up to write poetry. Of course, that is just an idea :-))
The next tomb that belongs to emperor Khai Dinh is the most recent one and was build in the 1920's. It is also different from the other tombs because it wasn't build as a park with one courtyard going into another, but as an actual palace.
Unfortunately, it started to rain quite hard when we were walking upstairs, but even with bad weather the tomb looks magnificent. May be even the weather adds some dramatics into the scenery.
The last but not least was the tomb of Minh Mang. In this complex, the main buildings are arranged on an east-west axis, including a courtyard surrounded by warrior statues and several temples and pavilions. Several bridges cross two lakes before the axis ends before the burial ground. The mausoleum features large gardens and lakes.
Among the three tombs and the pagoda that we visited that day, I couldn't say which I liked most because they were all unique in their ow way. True example of rich Vietnamese history and definitely something I would love to see again. Wish we had more time here and the weather wasn't so bad.
Anyway, we still had a way to Hoi An ahead of us. It's been often said that the mountains between Hue and Hoi An separate the north and the south and they also are a sort of barrier to all the rain the bad weather. All the rain gets stuck on the Hue side and Hoi An is much warmer and sunnier. We wanted to test the theory as soon as possible since we were in real need of some warmth and sunshine.
The clouds that indeed got stuck in the mountains...
... and the promised sunshine of Danang and Hoi An on the other side.
All together the trip from Hue to Hoi An took us 4 hours excluding the time needed to visit the tombs.
In Hoi An we are planning to stay for 3 days and then take the night train to Saigon. The weather forecast promised warm and sunny days and we are really looking forward to that! :-))
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