Friday, July 11, 2014

Dinner and Night at the Metropole, then a long drive to Halong Bay.

fast and efficient flight on board an ATR, then to the hotel Metropole for dinner and night.

Le Metropole Hanoi is a 5 star historic luxury hotel opened in 1901 in the French colonial style. It is located at 15 Ngo Quyen Street in Hoàn Kiếm District, Hanoi, Vietnam. The hotel has a rich history and a century long tradition of welcoming ambassadors, writers, heads of state and entertainers including Charlie ChaplinGeorge H. W. BushJacques Chirac, etc.
The hotel was opened in August 1901 by André Ducamp and Gustave-Émile Dumoutier.It was the first venue in Indo-China to show motion pictures.
Somerset Maugham wrote The Gentleman in the Parlour at the hotel. Charlie Chaplin and Paulette Goddard spent their honeymoon at the Metropole in 1936 after getting married in Shanghai.
Graham Greene stayed at the hotel in 1951 while writing The Quiet American.
Following Vietnamese independence in the 1950s, the Metropole was renamed the Thong Nhat Hotel by the Communist government. In the 1960s, a bomb shelter was constructed to protect guests during American air raids. Joan Baez visited Hanoi with an American delegation in December 1972 and found herself caught in the Christmas bombings. She recorded her song Where Are You Now, My Son? in her hotel room at the Thong Nhat during an air raid, with the sounds audible in the recording.

In 1987, the French Pullman Hotels chain entered into a joint venture with the Vietnamese government to restore the hotel to international standards. The hotel was completely rebuilt, regaining the name Metropole and reopening on March 8, 1987

















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