(TITC) - Travel+Leisure Magazine just scratched down the top 25 most beautiful cities in the World, including Hoi An Ancient Town of Vietnam.
Love and beauty are in the eyes of lovers. A high-flying skyline, ample parkland, a decided-upon devotion to a single hue are those that made a place beautiful. A place where people can spend days, stress-free exploring ancient wonders, world-class museums, or surrounding mountains, or simply wandering on a street with heaps of bright juicy oranges, music playing as a background and young lovers lost in their own world.
Colourful Hoi An lanterns sparkle and strangely fanciful (Photo: Quang Nam Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism)
Hoi An Ancient Town, located in the south-central coastal province of Quang Nam, is well-known for its musing and soothing scenery, possesses a chinese and french architecture throughout the city and all well blends with diverse local food. Hoi An has stolen many hearts of travellers worldwide with its well-preserved history recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The life in Hoi An provides a vibe of the vibrant daily life of locals, bustling and lively streets, with charming white sandy beaches nearby.
This place is one of the most welcoming and romantic cities on Earth that any travel lover should experience once in their lifetime. Imagining a beautiful twilight walk along the ancient streets under lanterns, hand in hand with your love one, visitors are brought back to ‘the past’, ‘free their souls’ while travelling on wooden boats and ‘extending’ their romantic dreams in Hoi An with shimmering and fantasy lanterns.
Hoi An was used to be a hustle bustle harbour, one of the prosperous trading ports in South-east Asia; its landscape and scenery have been well preserved till today with timber-frame houses, as well as sacred temples, pagodas, and a Japanese-style bridge from the 1700s. Arriving at Hoi An, the first thing pops out is a rich yellow hue colour spreading along the street. Lanterns and the old wooden traders' houses radiate an “old but gold” time become Hoi An’s hallmarks.
Old houses in a rich yellow hue colour
Day time is for bicycle tours of the irrigated countryside nearby, a lazy day on Cua Dai Beach or an excursion to the Bay Mau Coconut Forest. Hoi An by night will be full of extremely pleasant experiences. The whole ancient town will be covered with shining, eye-catching lanterns, illuminating the night; Hoi An is given a breathtaking beauty just by that. For culture lovers, Hoi An offers a World-class outdoor visual art performance “Hoi An Memories” show, presenting past and present Hoi An. Another option is to relax by the Hoai River, admiring flower lanterns release and being immersed in the soothing and shimmering scenery.
To enjoy all the quintessence in the culture and lifestyle of Hoi An people, visitors should participate in folk games organised by the local government such as Bai Choi singing, blindfolded and beating the pot, etc…
Last but not least, enjoying culinary world, savouring specialties such as mixed mussels with crispy rice cake, wet rice cake rolls, prawn and meat cake, Cao Lau noodle bowl, Quang noodle (with chicken or eggs and pork), fried wonton…Ordering light snacks such as sweet tofu pudding, mixed sweet soup, bean sweet soup, sweet potatoes sweet soup, or the famous delicious maize sweet soup.
