Photo: This Photo was taken by Supanut Arunoprayote. ()
A self-guided audio walking tour inside the walls of the Imperial City of Huế, seat of the Nguyễn dynasty. It begins at the Flag Tower of 1807, where the battle of 1968 is told, and the nine Holy Cannons cast in 1803 and 1804 from the bronze of the defeated Tây Sơn, then passes through Minh Mạng's Meridian Gate of 1833, with its five passages and Five-Phoenix Pavilion, to the Thái Hòa Palace and its throne. Inside the Forbidden Purple City, where the emperor's household lived until Bảo Đại's abdication in 1945, it visits the Duyệt Thị Royal Theatre of 1826, Khải Định's Reading Pavilion, and the residences of the queen mothers at Trường Sanh and Diên Thọ. It ends among the halls of ancestral worship, distinguishing what survives from what was lost in 1947: Điện Phụng Tiên, Thế Miếu with the Nine Dynastic Urns, the Hiển Lâm Pavilion and the rebuilt Thái Miếu, and the Long An Palace, now the Huế Museum of Royal Antiquities. Huế is about 60 kilometres by road from the cruise port at Chân Mây, and from there the ship's own excursion is the safer choice.
14 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 63 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 3 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Flag Tower, Holy Cannons of the Citadel of Hue, Meridian Gate, Thái Hòa Palace.
Forbidden Purple City, Duyệt Thị Royal Theatre, Thái Bình Lâu, Truong Sanh Residences - Palace of Longevity, Diên Thọ Residence.
Điện Phụng Tiên, Thế Miếu, Hiển Lâm Pavilion, Thai Mieu Temple, Huế Museum of Royal Antiquities.
Nine bronze cannons cast in 1803 and 1804 from the weapons of the defeated Tây Sơn, as symbols of victory rather than for war.
Minh Mạng's gate of 1833, with five passages ranked by status beneath the Five-Phoenix Pavilion, from which the emperor watched parades.
The Nguyễn throne hall, rebuilt in 1833, with 80 lim wood columns painted with gilded dragons and a throne of nine dragons.
Minh Mạng's court theatre of 1826, restored with its blue ceiling of sun, moon and stars, where court music is performed again.
An ancestral temple where the women of the court could worship, destroyed in 1947; its gate, walls and screens remain.
Minh Mạng's temple to the Nguyễn emperors, built in 1821 and 1822, with the Nine Dynastic Urns in the courtyard before it.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 14 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 14 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Huế — the Imperial City of the Nguyễn, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
14 narration points, including Flag Tower, Thái Hòa Palace, Forbidden Purple City, Thái Bình Lâu and Thế Miếu. That is about 25 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~1–2 hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 14 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.