(VOVWORLD) - US-based travel magazine Condé Nast Traveler has described Hanoi as an urban gem of northern Vietnam, highlighting its French facades, scooter-filled lanes, and sizzling street food that make the capital city well worth a stop.
Reporter Scott Campbell recommended a visit to the city's Train Street, where they can sip condensed-milk coffee with locals and watch daily life unfold just inches from the tracks.
Other places to visit include Hoan Kiem Lake, the calm heart of the city, Ngoc Son Temple, dedicated to a 13th-century general, and the Old Quarter, a tangle of 36 medieval guild streets still named for their original trades—silversmiths on Hang Bac, paper sellers on Hang Ma, silk merchants on Hang Gai.
Visitors are also advised to check out top places to eat and drink in Hanoi. The best stalls cluster where the old guilds once worked: Hang Buom for sweet snacks and grilled skewers, Tong Duy Tan for late-night noodles, and Cho Dong Xuan market for breakfast pho, fried dough sticks, and iced coffee amidst the morning crowds.
In the French Quarter, you’ll find another pocket around Nguyen Du and Ly Quoc Su, where vendors balance baskets of herbs and broth on bicycles and serve meals that cost less than a cup of coffee.
Campbell describes Hanoi as a paradise of traditional craft villages. Travelers come, too, for the crafts: the centuries-old silk, pottery, and lacquer traditions still alive in the villages just beyond the city limits.
The author suggested that visitors spend half a day in Quang Phu Cau incense village or Chuong village, where life still follows the old rhythm with families practicing their crafts across generations.