Top 4 Must-see Cultural Museums in Hanoi

It is a ritual that when you travel to a country, you should visit some museums. Therefore, in this article, beyond a repository of antiques, these 4 cultural museums in Hanoi will amaze you with captivating artistic heritage tied to our historical-political contexts on your trip to Vietnam!

1. Vietnamese Women’s Museum

Vietnamese Women’s Museum

To clarify, it is very rare that a country has a museum dedicated to women. However, you can find two women’s museum in Vietnam: Vietnamese Women’s Museum in Hanoi and Southern Vietnam Women Museum in Ho Chi Minh City. In short, we honor women for their silent sacrifice and contributions in family life, agriculture and wartime.

Numerous Vietnamese nón are hanged in the museum

There are three themes which are exhibited in Vietnamese Women’s Museum: Women in Family, Women in History and Women’s Fashion. Narratives in Vietnamese, English and French can be found for every object. Further, visitors will be fascinated with colorful and impressive traditional jewelry and costumes made by skillful handicrafts of ethnic minorities. Moreover, you will surely respect mostly-neglected women’s contributions in marriage and childbirth, admire Vietnamese heroics during two resistance wars and be attracted by the rituals of Mother Goddess worship. Don’t forget numerous colorfully-painted nón (Vietnamese women’s traditional hat) hanged impressively throughout all five floors of this museum.

• Address: 36 Ly Thuong Kiet Street, Hoan Kiem District, Hanoi
• Entrance fee: 30,000 VND/ticket
• Opening hour: 8h-17h from Monday-Sunday

2. Vietnam Fine Arts Museum

Vietnam Fine Arts Museum

If you are seeking for an aesthetically curated museum whose architecture is the combination of modernism and colonialism, Vietnam Fine Arts Museum is the place to go. Formerly belonged to French Ministry of Information, this museum proudly exhibits and preserves many Vietnamese art treasures. Visitors can find more than 20,000 works of art which are chronologically presented: Prehistoric arts, Fine arts from 11th to 19th century, Contemporary arts from the early 20th to present, Folk fine arts and Ceramics. Not only paintings, lacquers, sculptures but other antiques such as clothes, musical instruments and ritual objects created by ordinary Vietnamese handicrafts are also exhibited. You should see the Guan Tin’s thousand-eyed, thousand-armed sculpture, which is one of the most giant and skillful works in the 16th century.

Impressive exhibits of Hanoi Capital in Vietnam Fine Arts Museum

This is one of must-visit cultural museums in Hanoi and is completely ideal for photographing. In other words, you will find every window in this place perfect frames for your photos. Several lifelike lacquer paintings will be extremely suitable for vibrant and lively backgrounds.

• Address: 66 Nguyen Thai Hoc Street, Ba Dinh District, Hanoi
• Entrance fee: 40,000 VND/ticket
• Opening hour: 8h30-17h from Monday-Sunday

3. Vietnam Museum of Ethnology

Vietnam Ethnology Museum is an insightful preservation of the sociology-cultural and daily life of 54 ethnic minorities in Vietnam. This is also one of the most famous cultural museums in Vietnam. Constructed on the land of 4 hectares, as a result, this museum consists of three buildings: Bronze Drum Building, Kite Building and Garden of Architecture. Moreover, the Bronze Drum building displays symbolic antiques such as clothes, jewelry and daily objects relating to their living, farming, raising cattle and other spiritual rituals of seven ethnolinguistic groups. On the other hand, the Kite Building contains four exhibitions: Southeast Asia Cultures, Indonesian Glass Paintings, A Glimpse into Asia and Around the World.

Unique folk architecture in Garden of Architecture

Garden of Architecture exhibits ten models of folk architecture constructed by ethnic people. Most importantly, visitors can understand the differences between each ethnic group in the context of their ecological environment. Furthermore, traditional water puppet shows occur frequently in this garden. Above all, when sitting in a tranquil garden, felling the rural atmosphere, travelers can fully contemplate the cultural distinctiveness of a Southern East country.

• Address: 1 Nguyen Van Huyen Street, Cau Giay District, Hanoi
• Entrance fee: Visit (40,000 VND/ticket); Water Puppetry Show (90,000 VND/adult & 70,000 VND/kid)
• Opening hour: 8h30-17h30 from Tuesday-Sunday (closed on Monday)

4. Hanoi Museum

Hanoi Museum

This museum has its location on Pham Hung Street, in the cluster of the most unique architectural works of the Capital. Besides, it showcases over 50,000 artifacts of which, the rare and precious antiquities account for over 7,000. The museum’s collection includes stoneware, bronze, and ceramics of the Ly, Tran, Le and Nguyen dynasties as well as Chinese and Japanese ceramics. This is one of 4 must-see cultural museums in Hanoi!

Gallery of Hanoi Museum

From view afar, it looks like a diamond illuminating the western corner of the city. With a spacious campus of more than 50,000m2, the building includes four floating floors and two basements. It has the height of 30.7m and the construction area of ​​11,952m2. Also, spacious campus and unique architecture makes the place a familiar destination for domestic and foreign visitors on a trip to Hanoi.

• Address: Pham Hung Street, Me Tri Ward, Nam Tu Liem District, Hanoi
• Entrance fee: FREE
• Opening hour: 8h-17h from Monday-Sunday

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