The Forbidden Purple City

changing of the guard ceremony

Hue is built around the Imperial City, the seat of the Nguyen Dynasty, the final dynasty of imperial Vietnam. The Imperial City is a citadel within a citadel, a walled palace within the walled ancient city (where our hotel was located).

Within the Imperial City is the Forbidden Purple City, like the Forbidden City in China, it was a private residence exclusive to the emperor and his household. 

It was a hot, humid day when we bought our tickets to explore the Imperial City. The sky was a bit overcast in the morning, but shortly the sun burst forth with a vengeance! It was to be a hot, bright, sunny day after all.

The outer parts of the Imperial City are made up of a number of royal temples and shrines surrounded by beautiful verdant gardens.

The most important temple in the Imperial City is Hien Lam Pagoda, the shrine to the emperors. Inside, each emperor of the Nguyen Dynasty has his own shrine.

Outside the temple are the Nine Dynastic Urns, each one decorated in with unique symbols to represent the various emperors.

Some of the buildings in the Imperial City have been rebuilt, and many are still in ruin and waiting to be restored. Still, it's amazing how many of these old structures survived the decades of war in Hue.

Even after the war with the French (the First Indochina War), Hue became the border between North and South Vietnam, and was the location of some of the heaviest fighting during the Vietnam War (the Second Indochina War).

Even after five years in Thailand, I was not prepared for how hot central Vietnam would be in the summer! By the afternoon, when we sat down to have some cold water and crackers that we had packed (to avoid paying for food inside the tourist sites), it was already over 38C (over 100F). The hot, hot sun and heavy humidity just made it all the worse!

But we didn't let the weather get us down! After the cloudy days and rain in Hanoi, it was nice to see the beautiful blue sky. Despite the temperature, it turned out to be a beautiful day.

The Imperial City is built around the Forbidden Purple City where the Nguyen emperors and their household lived. The Nguyen Dynasty ruled Vietnam from 1802 until 1945, when the emperor abdicated and the country split into two.

The Nguyen Dynasty was plagued by political strife, and stuck in the impossible position of trying to balance the preservation of Vietnamese culture and independence with cooperation with the French colonial administrators.

The Forbidden Purple City is actually not all that purple! The beautiful and elegantly designed buildings are mostly red and gold (with the occasional purple stripe running along the outside of the buildings for an accent). I'm not actually sure where the name came from. Perhaps it's to differentiate it from the Forbidden City in Beijing, and maybe it used to be even more purple.

In any case, this part of the Imperial City, where the emperor and his family and household actually lived, is the most beautiful and peaceful part of the Imperial City. It's tucked away in the back, and surrounded by royal gardens. By the time we arrived, most people had already left, so it almost felt as if we had the entire Forbidden Purple City to ourselves!

It really was an amazing site! I only wish that some of the interiors of the buildings had been restored as well. I would have been really interested in seeing how the imperial family lived, but most of the buildings are empty on the inside.

By the time we left, we had spent several hours exploring the Imperial City. We were so hot and exhausted (and I was a tiny bit sunburnt). Luckily, we exited the back gate of the city right across the street from an air-conditioned branch of Highland Coffee!

A delicious iced Vietnamese coffee is just the ticket to recovering from a long, hot day on your feet.