Stroll a long Xuan Huong Lake

Thanks to its poetic and romantic beauty, Xuan Huong Lake has long been an appealing tourist attraction in Dalat. Owning a prime location in the heart of the city, the lake attracts numerous both domestic and foreign tourists.

Xuan Huong Lake is a famous tourist attraction in Dalat. Situated in the center of Dalat city, it is an artificial lake with approximately 5 km2 circumference, and 25 ha wide. Xuan Huong Lake has long been famous for its immense pine forests, green lawns, and wonderful flower gardens. It is also a favorite rendezvous for tourists who love walking or using a stagecoach to visit Dalat city.

The crescent-moon-shaped lake covered an area of nearly 43ha, stretching around 7 km through numerous tourist attractions in Dalat City as Dalat Flower Park, Yersin Park, and Cu Hill. Xuan Huong Lake has been reputed to be a romantic place, a dreamy tourist attraction, and a dating rendezvous of loving couples as well. The surface of the lake is as smooth as a crystal mirror reflecting the romantic scenery of Dalat city with pine forest. In addition, spruce-shaded roads create dreamy beauty for the lake. Tourists could comfortably lean their back on these spruces, releasing hooks, contemplate breathtaking scenery on the lake with the swan boat ride, or set their foot on the graceful Thuy Ta Pavilion with its unique architecture to enjoy the Dalat flavors. The French formerly named it Grand Lac, yet it has been renamed Xuan Huong Lake since 1953. From the name of Xuan Huong Lake, a beautifully charming name, it deserves to be a perfect mirror, beautifying the magnificent city.

Xuan Huong Lake has an average depth of 1.5m, at an altitude of 1,478m, and is the heart of Dalat city. Thanks to its prime location at Xuan Huong Lake, Dalat is one of the few cities retaining the lake in the city center. The unique characteristics have turned Xuan Huong Lake into a spectacular tourist attraction, creating attractive features for Da Lat tourism. In the past, it used to be an inherently growing swamp with mat weaving and rice fields of the Lach minority people close to the Da Lach stream (the present called Camly stream). In 1919, on the initiative of a plan of building Dalat by the ambassador, Mr. Cunhac, Labbé, a civil engineer, built a dam from Thuy Ta pavilion to near the intersection of Ba Huyen Thanh Quan Street, Nguyen Thai Hoc Street, Bui Thi Xuan Street, and Dinh Tien Hoang Street to retain the water and form a lake. The French call the lake Grand Lac (Large Lake). In 1921 - 1922, under the command of Envy Garnier, the dam was built higher and longer. Then, from 1953, Gland Lac was changed another name Xuan Huong Lake as today. It was the first beautiful scenic spot in Lam Dong province to be recognized as a national-level beauty spot on 11/6/1988.

Prominent architectural works associated with Xuan Huong Lake are the Thuy Ta Pavilion. Tourists to Xuan Huong Lake have rarely missed the spot. They will have a chance to take photographs here with unique architectural forms, which is hard to find anywhere owning similar architecture. Seen from afar, a white house with a wide railing is prominent on the lake like a luxury yacht. Thuy Ta has been a tiny, beautiful coffee bar. It will still be feasible to build if the management board would like to build a place to meet a large number of tourists.  However, the image of Thuy Ta Pavilion has been associated with Xuan Huong Lake and deeply etched in the minds of Dalat citizens and tourists; its architecture always remains intact. Even the white of the architecture is unchanged.

To meet the customers' demand, another coffee bar is thus open on the opposite side of Thuy Ta Pavilion. It names "Thanh Thuy". The name (green water) is also closely associated with Xuan Huong Lake. It might also be for the reason that Thuy Ta still brings a particular feature not mixed with Thanh Thuy. Tourists to Thuy Ta Pavilion and Thanh Thuy to enjoy coffee also have designs on contemplating the lake. Yet the psychological feeling when sitting on Thuy Ta is still something peaceful and serene. Meanwhile, at Thanh Thuy, the scenery is much more diverse and the atmosphere is livelier. Leaning back at Thuy Ta, tourists are likely to feel much more private.

Xuan Huong Lake also hosts numerous tourism - cultural events in Dalat city, and Lam Dong province as well. Over time, Xuan Huong Lake is still the indispensable rendezvous of Dalat travel, playing an important role in promoting the image of Dalat to international friends. Not only being the heart of the city, Xuan Huong Lake is home to nurturing and evoking great emotions in tourists when arriving in the "home of thousands of flowers".