Description

Highlights

• Explore elegant French colonial buildings with original features.
• Get a glimpse of Vietnam’s turbulent past in the imposing Reunification Hall.
• Sip a cocktail at a sky-high bar looking out over the city’s rooftops.

Saigon Architecture Walk

Discover the architecture of Saigon, from beautifully preserved colonial-era buildings to modernist steel and glass skyscrapers.

Once known as the ‘Pearl of the Orient’ Saigon is home to a variety of different architectural styles that give the city its unique charm. Start the tour along Nguyen Hue Street, at the end of which is the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee Building set in beautiful flowering gardens. Built in 1909 this elegant colonial building started life as the Hôtel de Ville.

Take photos of the iconic Saigon Opera House, the city’s cultural and architectural icon, built by the French in 1898.
At the colonial Central Post Office stop to buy some stamps and take photos of the vaulted ceilings, arched windows and wooden shutters.Carry on to the former president’s palace, renamed as the Reunification Hall after the merger of North and South Vietnam in 1976. It has been preserved as it was when famously stormed by tanks on April 30, 1975 signifying the fall of South Vietnam.

Visit centrally-located Turtle Lake set on a roundabout, and discover its unique blend of Eastern and Western influences, and the legends behind it. One legend holds that there is a giant dragon underneath the city, it’s tail located at the site of Turtle Lake. A Feng Shui master advised the government that to maintain the peace and harmony, something must be constructed to hold the dragon’s tail to keep him at bay.

Finally arrive at the futuristic Bitexco Financial Tower, the tallest building in Saigon with 68 floors. It is shaped like a lotus bud, the national flower of Vietnam. Make your way up to the sophisticated Heli Bar and enjoy a cocktail while looking down over the curving river and the city’s rooftops.