Dalat - Vietnam's City of Eternal Spring!

Situated midway between Ho Chi Minh City and Nha Trang, inland, is the hill resort town of Dalat. Known as the City of Eternal Spring, City of Love (Vietnam's top honeymoon destination) or Le Petit Paris (check out the miniature replica of the Eiffel Tower behind the main post office), people come to Dalat for the cool, mountain air and mild climate and the prolific flowering gardens around the lake in the town centre.

Dalat is home to approximately 5000 members of a collection of hill tribes called Montagnards. Keep your eyes open for their traditional clothes in the markets.

Just outside Dalat there are plenty of trekking opportunities to see the vast market gardens, pine forests, waterfalls and vineyards - Dalat produces a very respectable drop of both red and white wines, predictably called “Dalat Wine”.

The architectural highlight of Dalat is Bao Cai's Summer Palace, built in French colonial style for the last king of the Nguyen dynasty but there are a number of beautifully preserved French colonial buildings to admire.

There are charming restaurants and coffee shops in Dalat and it makes pleasant relief from the heat and noise of other Vietnamese cities.

Dalat can be visited any time of the year with temperatures averaging between 15 & 24 Celsius. The dry season is December to March but the weather is also mostly sunny and dry during the ‘rainy season' (April to November).

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