The yellow facade
Seen through the iron gates.
Jorge Láscar — Public domain · Mig Gilbert from Brighton — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Richard Mortel from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia — CC BY 2.0 · Jérémy Toma — CC BY-SA 4.0
The Presidential Palace is the yellow French colonial palace on the north side of Ba Dinh Square, built between 1900 and 1906 by the architect Charles Lichtenfelder for the Governor-General of French Indochina. It borrows from the Italian Renaissance, with a grand staircase up to the main floor, classical columns and broken pediments over the windows, and it stands behind wrought-iron gates in grounds planted with mango trees. After 1954 the palace became the seat of the head of state, and it is still used for state ceremonies, so the building itself is closed to visitors. What you can visit is the grounds, now the Ho Chi Minh Presidential Palace Historical Site: the house where Ho Chi Minh lived from 1954 to 1958, the garage with the cars he used, a carp pond, and the wooden house on stilts built in 1958, where he lived and worked until 1969. The site sits beside the mausoleum and One Pillar Pagoda, so most people see it the same morning. Modest dress covering shoulders and knees is expected, and visitors keep to the marked path.
Seen through the iron gates.
Built in 1958.
And the mango-tree walk.
North side of Ba Dinh Square, Ba Dinh
Ho Chi Minh MausoleumA massive marble mausoleum holding the embalmed body of Ho Chi Minh, leader of t3 minutes walk4.6
One Pillar PagodaA small Buddhist shrine set on a single pillar in the middle of a square pond, s5 minutes walk4.4
Imperial Citadel of Thang LongFor centuries the heart of power in Vietnam: the Ly dynasty founded its capital,9 minutes walk4.3
Tran Quoc PagodaHanoi's oldest Buddhist pagoda, said to have been founded in the sixth century o12 minutes walk4.3
Temple of LiteratureVietnam's oldest seat of learning: a temple to Confucius founded in 1070, joined16 minutes walk4.5No. The building is closed because it is still used for state ceremonies, but the grounds and the houses Ho Chi Minh lived in are open with a ticket, and the palace can be seen from outside.