Tu Duc Tomb

The poet-emperor's garden retreat of lakes, frangipani and pavilions, used as a palace for two decades before it became his resting place: the most lyrical of Hue's royal tombs.

Emperor Tu Duc, the longest-reigning of the Nguyen sovereigns, built this complex between 1864 and 1867 and used it as a second palace for reading, writing poetry and hunting for the rest of his life. It feels less like a mausoleum than a landscaped garden: the Xung Khiem boating pavilion leans over Luu Khiem Lake, shaded paths wind between temples, and dozens of buildings, many with the character khiem, meaning modesty, in their names, spread across a walled park of pines and frangipani. In the stele pavilion stands the largest stone stele in Vietnam, inscribed with the emperor's own unusually self-critical account of his reign. His queens and adopted heir were honoured in temples nearby, and his actual burial place remains unknown. Only about seven kilometres from the centre, on the road past Thuy Xuan incense village, it is the easiest great tomb to combine with the city.