Phủ Chủ Tịch

Phủ Chủ Tịch, the Presidential Palace, stands at the heart of Hanoi, painted in the yellow that colonial buildings across Vietnam share. Built between 1900 and 1906, it was meant to house the French governor-general of Indochina. Charles Lichtenfelder designed it, though it is sometimes wrongly credited to Auguste Henri Vildieu. Its French colonial design draws on the Italian Renaissance, with aedicules, broken pediments, classical columns and quoins. A grand staircase leads up to the piano nobile.

Vietnam's independence in 1954 made the building the official residence of the president of Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh, however, declined to live there for symbolic reasons. He had a traditional Vietnamese stilt house built on the grounds and lived and worked there until his death in 1969. That house and a carp pond became the Presidential Palace Historical Site in 1975.

The palace itself stays closed and still hosts government meetings and official receptions, but you can walk the well-kept grounds. Towering mango trees fill the gardens, a Vietnamese note inside the European-style setting. Nearby, the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum houses the embalmed body of the man who chose the stilt house over the palace.