Phố Phan Đình Phùng

The experience

The most heavily planted street in Ba Đình, a shaded corridor of tall trees running past French colonial villas, embassies and government houses on the north edge of the old citadel. At its eastern end stand the Northern Gate of the Hanoi Citadel, whose brickwork still carries bullet holes, and opposite it Cửa Bắc Church, built in 1931 to a design by Ernest Hébrard in an eclectic Art Deco manner topped with Vietnamese roof tiles. Flower vendors work the kerb from bicycles, and the street is at its best in autumn.

Hanoi's handsomest walk: a tree tunnel of colonial villas that costs nothing and takes twenty minutes.

What a membership adds.

Everything above is free: the name, the photo, the rating, the exact spot. What members get is the part you can't Google: the sourced insider tip for this place (what to order, when to go, what to skip), every day of your trips unlocked in full with the insider tip on every researched stop, and the concierge at full strength, answering with your own insider tips, no daily meter.