C&J's Travels: Hue - the Imperial city Day 13

First things first,Hue is pronounced hu-ay, not hue as Jeremy keeps calling it :) Although I still have to correct myself everytime I say it.

So after our train journey we arrive at Hue train station. We heard loads about the taxi & hotel touts outside the station but we still got haggled and bombarded. One guy tried to convince us that he was working for one of the hotels we had found in the guidebook but we didn't believe him as almost everyone was trying to get us to come with them. Only after the taxi drove behind this guy almost the whole way did we realise he was telling the truth. We felt pretty embarrassed once we realised this!
We eventually started walking to the town and flagged a taxi that was driving past. We didn't have anywhere to stay and just gave him a name of a hotel we picked online. What a good choice. We stayed in Hung Vuong Inn which is a family run place above the restaurant. Everyone was so friendly, and we ate dinner in the restaurant which was really good. We tried the Hue speciality which is a mixture between a filled omelette and pancake.It is deep fried and filled with beansprouts, pork and shrimp and was very tasty. The kitchen is behind a glass screen which means you can see them cooking the food which is quite reassuring in Vietnam as some of the kitchens our food came out of before were pretty dodge :)After dinner we decided on a early night as I was feeling a bit ill and went off to bed.

Up early the next day we had some fruit smoothies downstairs which were delicious and off we went to check out the town.
We walked to the imperial part of the city which has a citadel and old temples. It was a pity that we were leaving for Hanoi that night as they were busy setting up for a festival around the moat that looked like it would be good.
We walked around a bit and checked out the old city which was pretty intersting. It was originally built in 1802 but was heavily bombed in the war so has been restored since then.

After the imperial city we decided that we needed a break so stopped for some beer at a riverside cafe and spent some time just watching the world go by.

We had decided to pay a little extra (well 6 dollars to be exact) to check out late which was the best money we have spent in a while! After a shower and packing we decided to check out an Italian restaurant that had been recommended. After a week and a half of rice and noodles it was good to have some pasta and pizza!

We went back to the hotel checked out and hoped that our train journey would be better than the one from Nha Trang to Da nang. We had booked a soft sleeper so we were hoping it would be good.
Luckily someone was looking out for us as the compartment was clean and lovely and only had 3 of us in it. We had a long journey ahead (over 12hours) but it went by quite quickly.

Next stop Hoi An.