A Guide To The Museums Of Hanoi - What To Do In The Vietnamese Capital
The Vietnamese capital of Hanoi is full of history. To learn more about the cities chaotic and colourful past there's no better way than to explore one of Hanoi's museums. Read our guide for all of the best museums to visit including some you may not have heard of before!
No trip to Vietnam is complete without a visit to the country's colourful capital of Hanoi. The northern Vietnamese city has played a vital role in shaping the Vietnam of today. From its imperial roots under the Ly Dynasty to its role in the Vietnam / American War.
If you’re looking for what to do in Hanoi and want to learn more about Vietnamese culture and history, the best way is to take a deep dive in one of Hanoi’s many museums. With museums covering the Vietnam War and the Vietnamese leader of Ho Chi Minh to ancient uncovered Buddhist relics and traditional outfits of Vietnam’s ethnic minorities, there’s art, culture and history a plenty.
Whatever your niche there will be a Hanoi museum you can sink your teeth into. This is our complete guide to the museums you cannot miss when visiting the Vietnamese capital!
In this Hanoi museum guide:
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Hao Lo Prison Relic Museum
Hao Lo Prison was first built by the French in 1896 to imprison Vietnamese individuals who resisted and fought for Vietnam’s independence. Later, during the American / Vietnam War, Hao Lo Prison was used to imprison captured American POWs.
You enter the museum via the large arched gatehouse, the only part of the original French prison that now remains. The first part of the prison focuses on the male, female and death row cells used by the French leaders, and talks about the physical and mental torture the Vietnamese prisoners had to endure here. There is also a guillotine on display that was regularly used.
The entrance to "Maison Centrale".
Outside the cells, there are photographs showing the impact of the US bombing campaign in Hanoi as well as a brick model showing the small gap in the sewer pipes that prisoners had used to escape the prison.
Upstairs, in another building, the museum talks about the Communist Party in Vietnam as well as the treatment of the US prisoners during the American / Vietnam War. The small exhibitions on the American prisoners seemed to suggest the US prisoners were treated extremely well in comparison to the Vietnamese POWs under the French. According to what we were taught in school this seemed to be a very rose-tinted and sugar coated view of what transpired, during the American War. The most famous prisoner of the Hao Lo Prison was former senator John McCain and his stay at the ‘Hanoi Hilton’ seemed far from comfortable.
There is a small gift shop in the middle of the museum selling scarfs, postcards and sweets.
Hao Lo Prison Relic Museum - Essential Information
Where is it?
The Hao Lo Prison Relic Museum is located southwest of Hoan Kiem Lake and can be found on a map here.
Opening times:
The museum is open everyday from 8.00am until 17.00pm.
Entry cost:
Tickets cost 50,000 VND each.
If you would like an audio guide, you can rent headphones for an additional 100,000 VND each. We didn’t do this as it was our second visit to the museum and remembered that all the information was written on the exhibits in Vietnamese, English and French.
Vietnamese Women's Museum
The Vietnamese Women’s Museum was an unexpected highlight and possibly our favourite museum in the whole of Hanoi.
The museum is set in over 5 floors in a white building with colourful windows. The exhibits cover everything from marriage, birth and family to the role of women in religion, farming, and their fight for independence. The museum showcases women’s fashion in Vietnam focusing on the traditional costumes worn by the different ethnic groups of the country. The different dresses varied widely from ethnic group to ethnic group with some being super vibrant and colourful and some dresses being more modest and plain.
Downstairs there is a small cafe and gift shop selling all the usual tourist tat such as Vietnamese postcards, posters and badges.
The Vietnam Women’s Museum would be great if you’re looking for something to do on a rainy day in Hanoi.
Vietnamese Women’s Museum - Essential Information
Where is it?
The Vietnamese Women’s Museum is a short walk south of Hoan Kiem Lake and can be found here.
Opening times:
The museum is open everyday from 8.00am until 17.00pm.
Entry cost:
Entry to the museum costs 40,000 VND per ticket.
If you would like an audio guide, it’ll cost an additional 40,000 VND. We didn’t take one and didn’t regret it as we felt there was enough information written on the displays themselves.
Vietnam National Fine Arts Museum
Set in a beautiful colonial three story building, the Vietnam National Fine Arts Museum is a must for anyone interested in art.
On the first floor there are lots of Buddhist relics, statues and paintings. Our favourite piece on this floor was a huge intricately carved wooden panel showing dragons intertwining in and around triangular spikes that looked almost like smoke. The panel was carved in the 17th Century and was taken from the Keo Pagoda found in the Thai Binh province, southeast of Hanoi.
The second floors showcase exhibits from the 1940s onwards, with a focus on contemporary and modern art. Our favourite pieces upstairs were the different paintings and photographs that focussed on Vietnam’s colourful street life.
We loved our time in the art museum and spent a good couple of hours here, exploring the different floors.
Similarly to the Vietnam Women’s Museum, if you have a rainy day in Hanoi, the National Arts Museum would be a great place to head to on a wet day.
Some of our favourite paintings in Vietnam's Fine Arts Museum!
Vietnam National Fine Arts Museum - Essential Information
Where is the museum?
The Vietnam National Fine Arts Museum is located a short walk from Hanoi’s Old Quarter and the Vietnamese Military History Museum and can be found here.
We’d recommend pairing a visit to this museum with a visit to the beautiful Temple of Literature.
Opening times:
The museum is open everyday from 8.30am until 17.00pm.
Entry cost:
Entry to the museum costs 40,000 VND per ticket.
B-52 Victory Museum and Lake
Before heading to the B-52 Victory Museum, we’d recommend heading to see the rusty remains of a B-52 bomber plane that was shot down into Huu Tiep lake on 27th December 1972. The twisted fuselage and plane wheels poke out of the shallow water, and serve as a ghostly reminder of the atrocities that took place during the Linebacker II campaign in the city fifty years ago.
Around the lake and down the narrow streets, there are plenty of coffee shops and pho restaurants. The area of Huu Tiep was once an area of the city used to grow flowers, and there are lots of colourful murals painted on the walls showing this.
After visiting the lake, walk ten minutes to the B-52 Victory Museum.
Outside the museum, stand huge anti-aircraft guns, satellite and radar dishes, large shells and humongous rocket launchers. In the centre, depending on which way you look at it, is a deconstructed / reconstructed B-52 bomber plane made up of lots of different bits of wreckage. Compared to the tangled metal remains of the B-52 plane shot down in Huu Tiep lake, the wreckage outside the museum really gave us a sense of scale of just how big the B-52 bomber planes were.
History fact: The B-52 planes were nicknamed “Big Ugly Fat Fellow” or BUFF for short.
Inside, the museum is set over two floors and delves into the defence efforts of the Northern Vietnamese against the US bombing campaigns.The exhibits show photographs, newspaper articles and first hand reports on the impact of the bombing raids as well as the weaponry and technology used to shoot down the US planes.
One of our favourite exhibits was seeing a leaflet given to American soldiers to hand out in case they were caught. With instructions written in Vietnamese, Chinese, Laotian, Thai and Burmese it was fascinating to see the different scriptures on one document.
President Nixon ordered the United States Air Force to conduct a strategic bombing campaign called Linebacker II (also known as the Christmas bombings) on Northern Vietnamese targets. During the twelve day bombing campaign, the US sent 200 B-52 planes to Northern Vietnam and dropped over 20,000 tons of bombs.
There is much debate over the outcome of Operation Linebacker II. The end of the operation led to the resumption of the Paris Talks on 8th January 1973 and the signing of the Paris Peace Accord on January 27th that signalled the end of the US involvement in the war.
After exploring the museum, we’d recommend crossing over the road and heading down the narrow alleyway to find the “Tiny Cafe”. Set in a wooden house, with seating inside and out, the cafe serves excellent coffee and plenty of iced teas. We enjoyed two delicious bac xiu’s (Vietnam’s take on a latte) and they hit the spot perfectly.
To learn more about what coffee to order, make sure you check out our Vietnamese guide to coffee here.
B-52 Victory Museum and Lake - Essential Information
Where is the B52 Victory Museum and Lake?
The B52 Victory Museum and lake are an easy ten minute walk away from each other.
The museum can be located here and the B52 lake can be found here.
Opening times:
The museum is open from 8.00am until 11.00am before closing for lunch and reopening from 13.30pm until 16.30pm.
The museum is open everyday except for Monday and Friday.
Entry cost:
Entry to the museum is free.
Vietnam Military History Museum
Continuing on the war theme, Vietnam’s Military History Museum covers all of Vietnam’s war time history. Covering everything from the Indochina Wars, the Vietnam War and Vietnam’s involvement in the Laotian and Cambodian Civil Wars.
The museum is set in lots of different buildings and showcases weaponry, propaganda posters, uniforms, medals, guns and bombs. There are also exhibits talking about the impact of the different wars on the Vietnamese people as well as discussing the demonstrations around the world against the Vietnam War.
The museum itself is quite hard to navigate as it is set over lots of different rooms on different levels and doesn’t seem to follow a set path. Make sure you head upstairs as there’s a whole other floor that we nearly missed.
Outside (at least when we visited) there was a huge statue made up of different plane parts, in the shape of a plane diving downwards with the tail of a plane pointing towards the sky.
To the left of the museum buildings is Hanoi’s Flag Tower (Cột cờ Hà Nội). A huge stepped, square pyramid made up of terracotta brick with an octagonal tower rising up in the centre. On top of this tower flies a huge Vietnamese flag. You are able to climb the base of the pyramid to get views over the museum itself. We can imagine that if you could climb the flag tower itself the view over the city would be incredible.
When we visited the flag tower, we had the added bonus of being treated to a huge dance troupe of elderly ladies waving bright blue fans in unison. It was quite the performance and the opening of the fans created a really cool thud/snapping sound against the gentle breeze.
There is a Highlands Coffee shop on site as well as vending machines to buy water, soft drinks and snacks.
Opposite the museum is Lenin Park (Công Viên Lênin) a small triangular park full of trees, benches and a statue of Lenin. The park is a great place to get a photo of the flag tower.
The museum will eventually be moved from its current site in the centre of the city to a new, larger location in the Tay Mo district outside of Hanoi. The museum is slowly moving its outdoor exhibits to the new site and depending on when you go, there may or may not be any of the war vehicles, planes or anti-aircraft guns on display.
When we visited at the beginning of April 2024, all the outdoor tanks, helicopters and planes that used to be outside the museum had already been moved to the new location and all that remained outside was the plane wreck statue. According to the recent Google reviews it looks as though the statue has now also been moved to the new museum.
Vietnam Military History Museum - Essential Information
Where is it?
The Vietnam Military History Museum can be located here.
Opening times:
The museum is open from 8.00am until 11.00am before closing for lunch. It will reopen between 13.30pm until 16.30pm.
The museum is open everyday except Monday and Friday where it is closed.
Entry cost:
Entry to the museum costs 30,000 VND per person to enter.
Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum and the Ho Chi Minh Museum
Sat just off a huge park and parade ground sits the square stone pillared mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh. Inside lies the embalmed body of the leader himself.
Just behind the mausoleum is the Ho Chi Minh Museum, a beautiful white building built in the shape of a lotus flower. Inside the museum, there is a huge bronze statue of Ho Chi Minh as well as exhibits which talk about Ho Chi Minh’s life, his politics and philosophy and the impact he had on education. The museum also covers the on-going legacy of Ho Chi Minh which is still seen in Vietnam today.
From the mausoleum and museum, make sure you don’t miss visiting the One Pillar Pagoda, a beautiful stone and wooden pagoda built in 1049 above a lake.
To visit the mausoleum itself there is a very strict dress code. To enter you will need to cover your shoulders and knees. Please be respectful of the rules, and remember there are no photos allowed inside the mausoleum itself.
The Ho Chi Minh Museum and Mausoleum - Essential Information
Where are they?
Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum can be found here and the museum of Ho Chi Minh is located here.
Opening times:
There are strict opening times for visiting Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum. The opening times vary from season to season:
April to October - open from 7.30am until 10.30am
November to March - open from 8.00am until 11.00am
The mausoleum is open every day except on Monday’s and Friday’s where it is closed.
If you just want to view the mausoleum from the outside, the park is open everyday from 7.00am until 17.00pm. To get into the parade ground outside the mausoleum you will be required to go through a security check.
The Ho Chi Minh Museum is open everyday from 8.00am until 12.00pm and from 14.00pm until 16.30pm. The museum is closed every Monday and Friday.
Entry cost:
Entry to the museum costs 40,000 VND per person for international visitors. The museum is free for Vietnamese citizens.
There is no entrance fee to visit the mausoleum but as a foreign visitor you need to buy a museum ticket to enter.
Imperial Citadel of Thang Long (Hoàng Thành Thăng Long)
The Imperial Citadel of Thang Long was built in the 11th Century by rulers of the Ly Dynasty. Built on the foundations of a previous Chinese fortress, the Imperial Citadel of Thang Long became the Ly Dynasty’s capital and remained the political seat of power in Vietnam for nearly thirteen centuries. When the Vietnamese capital was moved to Hue in the 1800s, the ancient fortress was left abandoned. Today parts of the citadel have been restored and the site was awarded UNESCO World Heritage status in 2010.
Tip - don’t leave the ticket hall foyer without checking out the huge diorama of what the old citadel would have looked like!
After you’ve bought your tickets head out to climb the super imposing Doan Mon Gate. Make sure to climb up the top of the gate to get great views over Hanoi, the citadel grounds and the manicured lawns and gardens. We loved how the gardeners had created flower beds to represent the Vietnamese and hammer and sickle flags.
The museum part of the citadel is a bit like an exhibit treasure hunt, with exhibitions dotted throughout the different citadel buildings. Inside you can learn about the importance of the citadel as a centre of political, social and military power, the history of the Ly Dynasty and the rise and fall of the Ly capital. The citadel is still an on-going active archaeological dig site and each year archaeologists are uncovering more and more treasures from imperial Hanoi. A lot of the artefacts found at the site are on display within the site.
Our favourite part of the citadel was actually a very recent addition in the form of the D67 War Command Bunker. This wartime bunker, along with a network of other communication tunnels, was buried deep in the heart of the citadel. Serving as a communications bunker for Vietnamese commanders to discuss tactics, the bunker is in complete contrast to the rest of the ancient citadel. As you follow the signs to the bunker, you head down a steep set of stairs, through an impenetrable thick steel door and arrive in a wartime bunker full of maps, phones and radar dishes. It feels quite eerie as it looks just as though it would have been back in the late 60s!
If you’re interested in bunkers and are heading south to Ho Chi Minh City, don’t miss visiting the ‘secret weapon’s bunker’ hidden under a busy street. You can read more about our visit here.
Included with the price of entry, is entrance to a massive excavation and archaeological site set just over the road (located here - between the citadel and Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum). From our limited knowledge about archaeology, it looked as though the archaeologists digging there seemed to be uncovering ancient water channels and wells.
There is a cafe on the edge of the archaeological site that was very popular with Vietnamese teenagers when we visited.
It is very easy to miss a lot of the exhibits at the Citadel as a lot of the exhibitions are housed inside buildings in the citadel grounds. We saw lots of other travellers walk past some of the larger exhibits housed in the buildings on the right hand side of the path (as you walk north, leaving the main citadel gate behind you).
Imperial Citadel of Thang Long - Essential Information
Where is it?
The Imperial Citadel is located east of Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum, just behind the Vietnam Military Museum. The citadel can be found here on a map.
Opening times:
The museum is open everyday from 8.00am until 17.00pm.
Entry cost:
Tickets cost 70,000 VND each.
Vietnam National Museum of History
Set in an impressive yellow coloured building with a hexagonal tower rising from the middle, Vietnam’s National Museum of History is a brilliant way to learn all about Vietnam. The museum has exhibits from prehistoric Vietnam all the way to the 1947 revolution and the impact of the American - Vietnam War.
On display are beautiful stone statues, intricately carved Buddhist relics and jewellery as well as photographs from the Vietnam war, revolution posters and war medals.
The museum is a great place to get a comprehensive insight to Vietnam’s complicated past.
Vietnam National Museum of History - Essential Information
Where is it?
The Vietnam National Museum of History can be found on a map here. The exhibitions are located in two buildings, make sure you visit both!
Opening times:
The museum is open from 8.00am until 12.00pm and from 13.30pm until 16.30pm everyday.
The museum is closed every Monday.
Entry cost:
Entry to the museum costs 40,000 VND per person to enter. The ticket price covers entry to both buildings.
Museum of Ethnology
This large museum offers a glimpse into the lives of Vietnam’s different ethnic groups and is a great place to learn about Vietnamese culture. Inside the museum is split into two parts, with one section focussing on Vietnam’s 54 different ethnic groups and the second section focussing on the different ethnic cultures around South East Asia.
Outside, in the museum garden, there are replica scale houses for you to enter. Our favourite was the large, triangular roofed stilted house.
Tip: you will need to take your shoes off to enter any of the houses, so wear shoes that are easy to put on / remove!
The museum is fascinating and you could easily spend a good few hours exploring all there is to see here. There is also a cafe onsite if you need to refresh between exhibit hopping!
Museum of Ethnology - Essential Information
Where is it?
The Museum of Ethnology is located west of the Old Quarter and can be found here.
The museum is around a twenty minute drive from Hanoi’s Old Quarter. To reach here you’ll need to arrange a taxi or scooter.
Opening times:
The museum is open every Tuesday to Sunday from 8.30am until 17.30pm.
The museum is closed every Monday.
Entry cost:
Tickets cost 40,000 VND each.
Hanoi’s museums are a great place to head to if you’re needing to escape Hanoi’s brutal humidity, or if you need to run away from one of its biblical downpours!
Most of the museums have great air conditioning and plenty of exhibits inside.
Guided tours of Hanoi’s Museums
If you have only a little time in Hanoi and want to maximise your museum visits with a curated tour, then why not check out some of the tours on offer with Get Your Guide.
For those interested in the Vietnam War you can check out this tour here.
If you’d like to visit the Museum of Ethnology with a local tour guide to learn more about the different Vietnamese cultures then why not check out this tour here. This tour includes pick up and drop off from Hanoi’s Old Quarter so would be a good solution if you don’t fancy arranging your own transport to the museum.
To learn more about Ho Chi Minh and visit the mausoleum with a guide, check out this full day tour here taking in some of the best Hanoi has to offer.
Check out Get Your Guide here for more Hanoi tour options.
Getting around Hanoi
Most of the museums we’ve listed above are within walking distance of the Old Quarter. However if you’re planning on heading to the Museum of Ethnology or Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum you may want to arrange a taxi.
The easiest way to do this is to order a car or scooter taxi from the Grab app. Just enter your pick up point and where you want to get dropped off and choose whether you want to travel by car or by motorbike.
The quickest way to reach any of the museums will be by ordering a motorbike taxi.
To use the Grab app you will need a Vietnamese sim card. To arrange an eSIM in advance of arriving in Vietnam, check out the options available on Airalo here.
Where to stay in Hanoi?
The best place to stay if it's your first time in Hanoi will be the pretty streets of Hanoi’s Old Quarter. Check out this link here for some of the top rated hostels, guesthouses and hotels to stay at.
Hanoi is a fascinating and Multi-faceted city full of history, culture, art and surprises. It’s museums give a great window into Hanoi and Vietnam as a whole. No matter what you’re interests are, Hanoi will have a museum that will capture and enthral you.
Let us know in the comments which is your favourite or if we’ve missed any from our list.
Thanks for reading,
John & Ellie x
#adventuresofjellie
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