In town

The 5 km shoreline loop is the city's spine — 45 to 60 minutes on foot, and it is at its best in the mist between 05:30 and 08:00.

A guesthouse shaped like a mushroom forest, designed by the daughter of a former president of Vietnam. You can climb through it, and you can stay the night. Russians often call it the Crazy House, Vietnamese say Hang Nga villa.

A large landscaped park on the slopes above Da Thien lake: pines, flowerbeds, LOVE letters clipped out of shrubs, a giant chess set and a gazebo on the water. People come here for a walk and photos, not for wilderness.

Pink walls on a stone base, steep tiled roofs with dormers, a row of pointed windows and urns of chrysanthemums along the drive — the complex stands out in the city by colour alone and is visible from afar. Locals call it Nhà thờ Mai Anh. It is a working convent rather than a museum: people come for the service, while visitors photograph the facade from the forecourt. The grounds look out over the valley and the tiled roofs below.

The place is built around one idea: your tea is warmed on charcoal at your own table. A grate is cut into a solid wood slab, coals glow underneath, a glass pot sits on top — the drink finishes in front of you and stays hot through the whole conversation, which in Da Lat damp matters more than tasting notes. The garden sits under a roof: tree ferns as tall as a person, a stream with wooden footbridges, gravel underfoot, a fire pit in the middle of the room and folding chairs around it. The roof is translucent with strips of cloth stretched over it, so the light stays daylight and the rain stays outside. Some tables are set at the edge of the slope, with a view over the valley and the built-up hill opposite.

The only working stretch of the old rack railway, leaving from the art-deco station of 1938. Seven kilometres to Trai Mat, and at the end the Linh Phuoc pagoda with a 49-metre dragon built from 12,000 bottles.

An onsen on the edge of a slope: the hot baths stand at panoramic windows with pines and city roofs behind them. There are wooden two-person tubs with a line of stepping stones between them and a larger pool under a round lamp, steam rising off the water. Besides the water there are three saunas in sequence — Himalayan salt, herbal and hot stone. The rest room has a salt wall, sand underfoot and straw cushions, and there is a cafe with tea upstairs.

A night show staged inside the pine forest around Ho Than Tho — the Lake of Sighs, the old tourist area reopened as a light park. The trunks are lit from below, and between them stand a tunnel of flowers, arches and wings several metres high, with hydrangea beds along the paths. This is an evening in itself, not a photo stop — everyone we know who has been came back impressed, without exception.

A Japanese quarter under the pines: red torii gates, a small street of shops, a koi pond with bridges, pavilions over the water, pines clipped into bonsai shapes and a valley view from the wooden decks. People come here to take pictures rather than to walk in nature: there is kimono hire and rooms set up for shooting.

A park nine kilometres north of town, at the foot of Lang Biang. You go in under an arch shaped like a giant tree, and behind it are gardens with a koi pond you can feed, waterfalls, a square for the gong performance, a K'Ho craft village with folk costumes for hire, a go-kart track and a small animal enclosure — raccoons, rabbits, goats. The map at the entrance lists more than twenty points, so walking the whole of it takes half a day.

A brick church with two spires in Cam Ly: pointed arches, a rose window over the door, full-height stained glass in the sanctuary and saints painted across the vault. An arcade with patterned floor tiles runs along the building. On the terrace in front stands a canopy chapel with a statue of the Virgin, a clipped garden and small trees in bronze planters around it.