Why travel this route
Most visitors see Hue's citadel and tombs and leave. The villages along the Perfume River are the other half of the story: they made the paper flowers, the incense and the conical hats that the court and the temples consumed by the cartload, and several still do.
You do the monuments first, then take the boat downstream and get on a bicycle. The riding is flat, the lanes are quiet, and you finish having made a paper flower badly, which is the correct outcome.
- The Imperial City: the citadel walls, the Forbidden Purple City and what survived the war
- Thien Mu pagoda above the river, with its seven-storey tower
- A boat down the Perfume River to Tien Non pier
- Cycle through Tien Non's flower fields and the lanes beyond
- Thanh Tien village, where paper flowers have been made for four centuries
- Try folding and dyeing your own, and see the folk prints of Sinh village
- Ride back through rice fields and small hamlets
Where you sleep, night by night
A full day from central Hue, combining monuments, river and countryside.
| Stop | Nights | Why we stop here |
|---|---|---|
| Hue | 1D | The Nguyen capital: a walled citadel, royal tombs scattered along the Perfume River, and Vietnam's most particular cooking. |
What you actually do
About 15 km of flat cycling with a support vehicle, plus walking inside the citadel.
- Imperial City and Forbidden Purple City
- Thien Mu pagoda
- Perfume River boat ride
- Cycling through Tien Non flower village
- Paper flower craft at Thanh Tien
- Folk painting at Sinh village
- Countryside lanes and rice fields
Good to know before you book
The citadel is largely unshaded and gets very hot from May to August. We start early and move the cycling to the late afternoon in those months.
Plan this trip with us
Tell us your dates, how many of you are travelling and what you would like to change. A trip planner in our Hanoi office replies within one working day with a day-by-day plan and a price.