Dalat is Vietnam's mountain retreat — a city of pine forests, flower farms, and French colonial villas perched at 1500m in the Central Highlands of Lam Dong province. While the rest of southern Vietnam sweats, Dalat stays cool and misty, which is why the French built it as a hill station in the early 20th century and why Vietnamese couples still come here for honeymoons.
The city has a romantically dilapidated colonial feel: grand villas on steep lanes, a central market spilling over with strawberries and artichokes, and a lake at the centre of town ringed with pine trees. The surrounding hills offer waterfalls, ethnic minority villages, and the Truc Lam pagoda on the shore of Lake Tuyen Lam.
From Ho Chi Minh City, Dalat is about 300km north — four hours by road or a short domestic flight from Tan Son Nhat airport. The road through the mountains is spectacular.