Quiet rooms in a French villa on Bà Triệu

196 Bà Triệu is a French-colonial house with tall shuttered windows, lime-washed walls and a staircase that turns twice before the top floor. Four studios have been made inside it, each one different, each one whole — a kitchen, a bathroom, a bed, a desk by a window.

Hoàn Kiếm Lake is twenty minutes on foot, which is the useful distance: close enough to walk back from dinner, far enough that the noise of the Old Quarter never reaches the street.