A fifty-five-minute plane trip north from Ho Chi Minh City and then a half-hour shuttle up in the mountains, bring you on the picturesque highland town of Dalat, originally the home of the Lat hill tribe after whom the place was named. A This particular language doctor, Alexander Yersin, was the main European to ‘discover’ the area in 1898 and the town, at 1475 metres, was founded in 1912 being a cool retreat for the French, wishing to escape the heat and humidity of Saigon and take pleasure in a spot of shopping. There were tigers, gaurs and elephants roaming the area during those times. This former French hill station carries a delightful and invigorating temperate environment, beautiful landscape of hillsides, waterfalls, lakes and pinus radiata forests, and is known across Vietnam and beyond due to the flowers, strawberries and wealthy, smooth coffee. Today it is still popular with ex-pats and foreign tourists being a golfing resort and being a retreat for writers and artists, as well being a romantic and refreshing get-away with regard to Vietnamese couples and people.

Dalat’s French colonial architecture, enhanced by the Vietnamese through an Eiffel-Tower-shaped radio station, has resulted in its tag of ‘Petite Paris’.

There are approximately 3000 villas dotted over Dalat’s hills. Most were modeled after early 20th century French local architecture with some featuring touches with the more modern art deco style. The area around Tran Hung Dao, the road that runs over the ridge and offers beautiful views, is often called ‘the French Quarter’. These once lovely colonial summer homes are in a sad condition, a faded and eerie reminder in the recent colonial past. Nevertheless, where this road merges, via a roundabout with Tran Phu Boulevard, there are plenty of elegantly restored examples of the French colonial period.

Like for example , the five-star Sofitel Dalat Palace Hotel and it is sister hotel, the Novotel across the road both of that create art deco facades. Your Dalat Palace, built in 1922 in the five-hectare park, and originally known as Langbian Palace, has been restored to its former glory. It features chandeliers in the 43 guest rooms, brass fittings and claw-foot tubs in the bathrooms, and replicas of European masterpieces inside wide corridors. Its The language restaurant, Le Rabelais, contains a magnificent view of your banana-shaped Xuan Huong Lake. Outside the Sofitel gate is one of the earliest villas built for Dalat’s first French Governor-General. This Novotel, constructed in 1932 as an annex to the Dalat Construction Hotel, features antique casement windows, high ceilings, period light fittings and then a vintage caged elevator of wrought-iron filigree.

Between the two hotels is the Restaurant de la Poste, some sort of former French colonial unit store, converted into a 1950s French bistro downstairs and a Vietnamese restaurant upstairs. It is well worth a visit for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Adjacent to the Novotel, is the spectacular European-style Dalat Cathedral using its 47-metre-high bell tower together with seventy French-made stained a glass windows. The present church has been constructed between 1931-42 and is nicknamed Hha Tho Con Ga due to the bronze rooster (con ga) weathervane placed on top of its bell tower.

Not far away is the now largely decorative former Dalat Railway Station similar to the ones seen in little French towns with the first half of that 20th century. The cog railway line was made in 1928 and ran from Dalat to Thap Cham until 1964 when it was eventually closed. Although it no longer operates, it is possible for tourists to take a past Russian-built steam train a few kilometres down the track.

Even the little club house of the Dalat Palace Golf Course can be a reminder of the original course built by the Frankophile Vietnamese Emperor, Bao Dai in the 1930s.

Dalat’s temperate climate using its November chill, the adjoining pine forests, faded French villas and occasional cobbled roadways, give it an European feel. Even the children use French-style chandails or sweaters with cold.

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