Hanoi

The tranquil green heart of the city — a legend-steeped lake with a red bridge leading to the little Ngoc Son temple on its islet, and a squat old tower rising from the water. Come at dawn for tai chi and joggers, or at night when it's floodlit; the weekend sees the surrounding roads go car-free.

Get gloriously lost in the ancient commercial maze, where each narrow street was once dedicated to a single trade (silk, tin, bamboo, votive paper) and many still are. A sensory overload of motorbikes, street kitchens, shrines and shophouses; just wander, dodge the traffic, and eat as you go.

Hanoi is a street-food paradise, and bún chả is its signature — grilled pork and herbs in a bowl of sweet-sour broth, with noodles to dunk. Add a bowl of phở for breakfast and a bánh mì on the go; pull up a plastic stool where the locals queue, and eat like a king for a couple of euros.

The solemn granite mausoleum on Ba Dinh Square where the embalmed body of 'Uncle Ho', founder of modern Vietnam, lies in state — with the stilt house he lived in, a museum and the One Pillar Pagoda in the leafy complex around it. A window into the nation's story; dress respectfully, and mind the strict rules.

A serene, walled complex of courtyards, pavilions and lotus ponds founded in 1070 as Vietnam's first university, dedicated to Confucius — its stone stelae, carried on the backs of turtles, record the names of scholars who passed the imperial exams. A peaceful, beautiful escape from the traffic outside.

A narrow residential lane where a working railway runs so close to the houses you could touch the train — locals set up trackside cafés, and the whole street clears just before it thunders through, inches away. A thrilling, only-in-Hanoi photo op; it opens and closes to visitors, so check, and mind the times.

A Hanoi invention and a small miracle — a rich, hot coffee topped with a whipped, sweet, custardy egg-yolk foam, like drinking tiramisu. Seek out an old hidden café up a crumbling staircase; served hot or iced, it's the city's most beloved caffeine ritual, and unlike anything you've tried.

Hanoi's nightlife is a plastic stool on a street corner — nowhere more so than 'Beer Street' (Ta Hien), where crowds spill across the road drinking bia hơi, fresh draught beer so cheap it's practically free. Grab a stool, order a glass and a plate of nem, and soak up the buzz; the whole city's night out.

A thousand-year-old northern Vietnamese art unique to the region — lacquered wooden puppets dance on a pool of water to live traditional music, telling folk tales of dragons, farmers and fishermen. Touristy but genuinely charming and short; the Thang Long theatre by the lake is the classic spot.

A weathered neo-Gothic cathedral of 1886, its twin grey stone towers looking like a miniature, blackened Notre-Dame dropped into the tropics — the heart of a buzzing café-and-boutique quarter on the edge of the Old Quarter. Sit at a pavement café opposite with an iced tea and watch the world go by.

The grim colonial-era prison, sardonically nicknamed the 'Hanoi Hilton' by the American POWs later held here — a stark, moving museum of Vietnam's struggle against French rule and the war that followed. Harrowing and one-sided, but a powerful and essential piece of the country's history.

The city's biggest lake, ringed by a relaxed café scene, with the beautiful red Tran Quoc Pagoda — Hanoi's oldest, its slender tiered tower rising on a tiny promontory over the water. Come for sunset with a coffee or a sundowner; the calm, breezy antidote to the Old Quarter's chaos.

A grand, cream-and-yellow colonial opera house of 1911, modelled on the Palais Garnier in Paris — the elegant centrepiece of the French Quarter. Admire the facade from the square, or catch a performance of classical music, opera or traditional Vietnamese arts inside its plush, gilded auditorium.

Hanoi's biggest covered market, a three-storey warren at the top of the Old Quarter piled high with everything from fabric and clothes to household goods and, around its edges, a famous cluster of street-food stalls. Chaotic and local rather than pretty; come for the food lanes and the sensory overload.

A tiny, much-loved 11th-century wooden temple built to resemble a lotus blossom rising on a single stone pillar from a lily pond, in the Ho Chi Minh complex. One of Vietnam's most iconic little structures; small and quick, but a charming, symbolic stop while you're at Ba Dinh.