Hanoi

Hanoi is a city where French colonial architecture sits beside ancient temples beside Soviet-era apartment blocks beside new construction, and the layers don’t compete — they simply coexist. The Old Quarter’s 36 guild streets have been operating continuously since the 13th century. Hoan Kiem Lake, in the center of the city, holds a legend about a returned sword that predates the French arrival by several centuries.

The Sofitel Legend Metropole opened in 1901 as the Grand Metropole Palace, when Vietnam was still French Indochina. It has outlasted every political system that has governed this city since — French colonial administration, Japanese occupation, the Democratic Republic, the American War period, and the doi moi economic reforms that began in 1986. Graham Greene wrote The Quiet American here in 1951. Joan Baez performed in the hotel’s bomb shelter during the 1972 Christmas bombing while American B-52s dropped ordnance on the city above. The shelter still exists. You can tour it.

Staying at the Metropole is staying at a property whose guest list is, in miniature, a history of the 20th century in Southeast Asia. That’s not a claim many hotels can make honestly.