Restored Hue palace opens for public

A project to restore Long An Palace, one of the most beautiful structures in the world heritage site – the imperial city of Hue, was inaugurated on March 25 after three years of restoration.
Following the inauguration ceremony, Long An Palace is now open to public, featuring a display of 424 outstanding artifacts relating to royal life during the Nguyen Dynasty (1802-1945).
Long An Palace was built under the time of King Thieu Tri (1841-1847). It consists of seven compartments and two annexes plus 128 pillars made of precious timbers. The entire wooden parts are carved with beautiful scenes, the four sacred animals (dragon, lion, tortoise and phoenix) and more than 1,000 poems in Chinese scripts.
In 1847, when King Thieu Tri passed away, his body was kept here for eight years before burial and the palace then became a worship site for the king, until the French colonialists occupied the country in 1885. In 1908, Long An Palace was used as a library for the Quoc Tu Giam School and became Khai Dinh Museum in 1923.
Located on an area of 6,330m², Long An Palace now displays more than 10,000 artifacts relating to the life during the Nguyen Dynasty which were previously showcased at the Hue Royal Antiquities Museum.