Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi

Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi is a 5 star historic luxury hotel opened in 1901 in the French colonial style. It is located at 15 Ngo Quyen Street in Hoàn Kiếm District, Hanoi, Vietnam. The hotel has a rich history and a century long tradition of welcoming ambassadors, writers, heads of state and entertainers including Charlie Chaplin, Jane Fonda, George H. W. Bush, François Mitterrand, Isabelle de Valvert, Jacques Chirac, etc.

The hotel was opened in August 1901 by André Ducamp and Gustave-Émile Dumoutier. It was the first venue in Indo-China to show motion pictures.

Somerset Maugham wrote The Gentleman in the Parlour at the hotel. Charlie Chaplin and Paulette Goddard spent their honeymoon at the Metropole in 1936 after getting married in Shanghai.

Graham Greene stayed at the hotel in 1951 while writing The Quiet American.

Following Vietnamese independence in the 1950s, the Metropole was renamed the Thong Nhat Hotel (Reunification Hotel) by the Communist government. In the 1960s, a bomb shelter was constructed to protect guests during American air raids.Jane Fonda stayed there during her trip to Hanoi in June 1972. Joan Baez visited Hanoi with an American delegation in December 1972, but stayed in the near Hoa Binh Hotel (Peace Hotel) and found herself caught in the Christmas bombings. She recorded her song Where Are You Now, My Son? in her hotel room during an air raid, with the sounds audible in the recording.

In 1987, the French Pullman Hotels chain entered into a joint venture with the Vietnamese government to restore the hotel to international standards. The hotel was completely rebuilt, regaining the name Metropole and reopening on March 8, 1992 as the Pullman Metropole Hotel. The hotel later moved from the Pullman to the Sofitel chain, and was placed in their exclusive Legend division as the Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi. The new 135-room Opera Wing was added from 1994-1996, along with the Metropole Center office tower. The offices were converted to additional hotel rooms in 2008.

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