Bao Dai’s Summer Palace — Dalat’s most visited royal residence
What it is
Despite the name, this is not a palace in the grand, ornate sense. Palace 3 is a two-storey art deco villa set on a pine-covered hill about 2 kilometres from Dalat city centre, with 25 rooms spread across two floors. Built as a private family retreat, it has the feel of a large, elegant home from the 1930s — tasteful, understated, and well-preserved. Today it functions as a museum, with the original furniture and personal belongings still in place.
Who was Bao Dai?
Bao Dai was the thirteenth and final emperor of the Nguyen dynasty, which ruled Vietnam from 1802 until its collapse in 1945. Educated in France and crowned at thirteen, he spent much of his reign navigating French colonial control before abdicating in August 1945 as Ho Chi Minh’s revolutionary government took power. His legacy is complicated — admired by some as a modernising figure, dismissed by others as a puppet of foreign interests.
Read more about the last emperor of Vietnam
The three Bao Dai palaces in Dalat
Bao Dai had three palaces in Dalat, and they are not in the same location — a point of frequent confusion among visitors. Palace 3, on Trieu Viet Vuong Street, is the subject of this guide and by far the most visited. Palace 1 sits on a hill about 4 kilometres east of the city centre and is also open to visitors, though it sees fewer tourists and has a slightly different character — more focused on Bao Dai’s role as head of state than on family life. Palace 2 is not open to the public.
Beyond Dalat, Bao Dai had residences elsewhere in Vietnam, including in a palace in Hue and a palace in Buon Ma Thuot — a reflection of how central he was to the political and social landscape of mid-20th century Vietnam.
History of Bao Dai’s Summer Palace
Construction began in 1933 and was completed in 1938, with the design credited to French architect Paul Veysseyre. The building sits on Ai An Hill, a site originally earmarked in Ernest Hebrard’s urban plan for Dalat as a residence for the French governor-general — Bao Dai effectively claimed one of the most coveted plots in the city.
The palace was built as a private family retreat, chosen in part because of Bao Dai’s well-documented love of hunting. The hills around Dalat at the time were home to tigers, elephants, and other large game, and the surrounding forests were his personal hunting ground. The family used the residence regularly throughout the late 1930s and 1940s, with Empress Nam Phuong and their five children occupying the upper floor while the ground floor served as a working and reception space.
In 1950, when the French persuaded Bao Dai to serve as head of state of the associated State of Vietnam, the palace was formally renamed “Biet Dien Quoc Truong” — the Palace of the Head of State. Its role shifted from summer retreat to an official residence with diplomatic functions. Bao Dai’s time here effectively ended in 1954, when he left for France following the collapse of French Indochina. He never returned to Vietnam and died in Paris in 1997.
After his departure, the palace passed through the hands of successive South Vietnamese governments. Ngo Dinh Diem used it as a highland retreat, and later Nguyen Van Thieu did the same. After 1975, the building came under provincial administration before eventually being opened to the public as a museum. Today it is managed as a tourist site and remains one of the better-preserved examples of colonial-era residential architecture in the central highlands.
One detail worth noting for visitors: the Vong Nguyet tower — a small terrace off the king’s bedroom on the upper floor — was where Bao Dai and Empress Nam Phuong would sit in the evenings to look out over the hills. It is a modest feature, but it gives the residence a personal quality that larger, more formal palaces rarely have.
What to expect inside Bao Dai’s Summer Palace
1. The ground floor — reception and working rooms
The ground floor was the public-facing side of the palace, used for receiving guests, official meetings, and day-to-day administration. Entering through the main door, visitors pass through a reception hall before reaching Bao Dai’s personal office on the right — still arranged as it was during his time, with a life-size white bust of the emperor above the bookcase and a smaller gold and brown bust of his father, Emperor Khai Dinh, nearby. The royal brass seals — one military, one ceremonial — sit on display beside them.
The library, meeting rooms, and a spacious dining room occupy the rest of the ground floor, along with a room dedicated to photographs and documents from Bao Dai’s reign. One of the more interesting objects in the reception room is a painting of Angkor Wat, gifted to Bao Dai by Cambodian King Sihanouk, and an engraved glass map of Vietnam presented by Vietnamese students studying in France in 1942.
A design detail worth paying attention to: the working rooms were deliberately oriented toward the garden, with steel-framed glass windows and connecting doorways creating a sense of flow between interior and exterior. It is understated but thoughtful architecture.
2. The upper floor — royal family quarters
The entire upper floor was reserved for the family’s private life. Each room is labelled and arranged as it was when the family lived here — Bao Dai’s bedroom, the empress’s quarters, and individual rooms for their children. Prince Bao Long’s room, set aside for him from 1939 as the designated heir to the throne, is decorated entirely in yellow, the imperial colour.
The rooms are roped off rather than fully accessible, but the layout is open enough to take everything in. Most rooms have informative panels in both Vietnamese and English. The Vong Nguyet tower — the moon-viewing terrace mentioned in the history section — is off the king’s bedroom and worth a moment to step into for the views over the surrounding pine forest.
3. The palace garden
The garden is genuinely one of the strongest parts of the visit, and it tends to catch visitors off guard. Both the front and rear of the palace are flanked by European-style gardens — trimmed hedges, stone pathways, flowering plants, and mature pine trees that filter the light and keep the grounds cool. The rear garden in particular is well-maintained and peaceful, and worth a slow walk before or after the interior.
4. Costumes and photo opportunities
Near the upper floor, visitors can rent traditional royal costumes and take photos — a popular activity, particularly among Vietnamese visitors and families. Horses and horse-drawn carriages are sometimes available on the grounds as well. Foreign visitors tend to either enjoy it or find it a bit kitschy; it does not detract from the rest of the experience, but it is worth knowing about before you arrive.
Location & getting there
Where is Bao Dai’s Summer Palace?
The palace is located at 1 Trieu Viet Vuong Street, Ward 4, Dalat — on Ai An Hill, roughly 2 kilometres south of the city centre. It sits within a pine-forested area that still feels relatively quiet compared to the busier parts of town, which adds to the atmosphere of the visit.
One thing to be aware of: searching for Bao Dai’s Palace on Google Maps brings up more than one result. This guide is about Palace 3 — the one on Trieu Viet Vuong Street — which is the most visited of the two open palaces and the one most travellers are looking for. Make sure you select the correct pin before setting off, as Palace 1 is located on the other side of the city, about 4 kilometres away.
How to get there
The easiest way to get there is by motorbike or taxi from the city centre, which takes around five to ten minutes depending on traffic. If you are already exploring the southern part of Dalat — which includes Crazy House and several of the hilltop coffee spots — the palace fits naturally into that loop without backtracking. Parking is available at the entrance for a small fee (around 3,000 VND for a motorbike).
Nearby — what to combine with a visit
Crazy House (Hang Nga Villa) is about a ten-minute walk from the palace and makes for an obvious pairing. Where the Summer Palace is restrained and historically grounded, Crazy House is the opposite — a surrealist guesthouse and architectural experiment that has become one of Dalat’s most distinctive attractions. The contrast between the two actually works well as a half-day combination.
Hilltop coffee shops are scattered throughout the surrounding area and are some of the best in Dalat for views. Several sit on the hillsides within a short ride of the palace, making them a natural end to the visit — Dalat’s coffee culture being reason enough on its own to linger in this part of town.
Practical tips & visiting information
Opening hours
The palace is open daily from 7:00 AM to 5:30 PM. Some older sources mention a midday closure between 11:00 AM and 1:30 PM, but more recent information suggests continuous hours throughout the day. To be safe, arriving in the morning is the better option — the light in the garden is nicer earlier, and crowds tend to build through the afternoon as day tours arrive.
Entrance fee
Admission is 60,000 VND per adult as of 2024. Children are free up to a certain height. Cash is the expected payment method — bring small notes. Parking for a motorbike costs an additional 3,000 VND.
Shoe covers
Shoe covers are mandatory inside the palace to protect the original wooden floors and are provided at the entrance. They go over your footwear rather than replacing it, so any closed shoe works fine. Sandals are not a problem, but bare feet are not permitted. The baskets for used covers near the entrance can get overwhelmed when large groups arrive — a minor inconvenience, nothing more.
Guided tours
Guided tours are available but only depart once enough visitors have gathered to form a group. Solo travellers and small groups may need to wait, sometimes for a significant amount of time. If that does not appeal, the palace is easy enough to explore independently — most rooms have informative panels in both Vietnamese and English that provide solid context without a guide.
How long to spend
Allow 60 to 90 minutes to see everything comfortably, including a walk through the garden. Palace 3 is not large, and the rooms are viewed from the doorway rather than entered fully, so the visit moves at a natural pace without feeling rushed.
Is Bao Dai’s Summer Palace worth visiting?
Bao Dai’s Summer Palace will disappoint anyone expecting grand royal architecture or lavish imperial interiors. It is a modest, elegant villa — and that is precisely what makes it interesting. The original furniture is still in place, the layout has not been dramatically altered, and the personal touches scattered throughout the rooms give a genuine sense of how the royal family actually lived rather than how they wanted to be perceived. That is rarer than it sounds.
The garden alone justifies the entrance fee for most visitors. It is well-maintained, genuinely attractive, and calm in a way that few paid attractions in Vietnam manage to be.
The honest caveat is this: if history and architecture are not among your reasons for visiting Dalat, the palace is unlikely to change that. A couple of reviewers have found it underwhelming, and that reaction is understandable if you arrive expecting something more dramatic. One critical voice in the crowd is worth acknowledging — the building is modest and the exhibits are light on deeper historical context. Better English-language signage and a more curated narrative throughout the rooms would improve the experience considerably.
For travelers with even a passing interest in Vietnamese history, the fall of the Nguyen dynasty, or colonial-era architecture, it is a worthwhile stop — especially at 60,000 VND. For those on a tight one-day schedule in Dalat, Crazy House, Xuan Huong Lake, and the surrounding highland scenery would take priority. The Summer Palace works best as part of a relaxed half-day in the southern part of the city, combined with Crazy House and a coffee stop with views — a combination that covers Dalat’s architectural range in a few hours without feeling like a checklist.
