District 1 Landmarks: Post Office, Opera House and Nguyen Hue

The historic core of District 1 sits on high ground just west of the bend in the Saigon River. Laid out by French urban planners in the late 19th century as a grid of tamarind- and mahogany-shaded avenues, the neighbourhood can be walked comfortably in a single morning from the cathedral square down to the riverfront pier.

Saigon Central Post Office, Notre-Dame Cathedral and Book Street

Start at Paris Commune Square, anchored by two late-19th-century icons. On the eastern side stands the yellow neoclassical Saigon Central Post Office (Buu Dien Trung Tam, 1886 to 1891), designed by architect Alfred Foulhoux with a soaring barrel-vaulted iron roof often mistakenly attributed to Gustave Eiffel. Step inside the working concourse to admire the mosaic floor tiles, antique mahogany telephone boxes, and two huge hand-painted 1892 telegraph maps above the entrance depicting old Saigon and southern Vietnam and Cambodia. Facing the square is the red-brick Romanesque Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica of Saigon (built in the 1870s with bricks shipped from Marseille; check current restoration scaffolding before you go). Immediately flanking the Post Office, shaded pedestrian Nguyen Van Binh Book Street is lined with independent bookshops, stationery kiosks and leafy outdoor coffee stalls.

Dong Khoi Street, the Saigon Opera House and Museum of Fine Arts

Walk south down Dong Khoi Street (formerly Rue Catinat, the setting of Graham Greene's novel The Quiet American) past heritage hotels including the 1880 Hotel Continental and the riverside Hotel Majestic. Halfway down Dong Khoi, Lam Son Square opens around the flamboyant 1900 Saigon Opera House (Municipal Theatre), whose carved stone caryatids and arched portal echo the Petit Palais in Paris. From the southern end of District 1 near Ben Thanh Market, walk five minutes to the yellow three-storey Ho Chi Minh City Museum of Fine Arts, housed in a 1929 mansion blending French Art Deco stained glass and wrought-iron lifts with Chinese ceramic roof tiles and breezy internal courtyards.

Nguyen Hue Walking Street, Cafe Apartments and Bach Dang Pier

Running parallel to Dong Khoi from the ornate 1908 People's Committee Building (City Hall) straight down to the Saigon River is broad, granite-paved Nguyen Hue Walking Street. Halfway along the promenade at 42 Nguyen Hue stands the famous nine-storey Cafe Apartments, a 1960s residential block whose individual flats now house independent coffee roasters, matcha bars and local fashion labels with balconies overlooking the boulevard. At the foot of Nguyen Hue, cross to landscaped Bach Dang Pier to watch barges and the Saigon Waterbus ply the river opposite the modern towers of Thu Thiem.