Co Loa Citadel is one of the oldest and most important historic sites in Vietnam. Around the 3rd century BC, King An Duong Vuong (Thuc Phan) made Co Loa the capital of the Au Lac kingdom and surrounded it with huge earthen ramparts that wound around each other like the shell of a snail. The name Co Loa<\/em> is usually translated as \u201cold snail\u201d, and legend says the walls once spiralled nine times.<\/p>\n Today three rings of rampart can still be traced across the fields of Dong Anh, about 17 km north of the Old Quarter. The outer wall runs for roughly 8 km, and in places the earth banks still stand many metres high and around 25 metres wide at the base. Archaeologists have found Dong Son-era bronze drums, tools and large numbers of bronze arrowheads here \u2014 physical clues behind one of Vietnam\u2019s best-known legends.<\/p>\n The story goes that the Golden Turtle gave King An Duong Vuong one of its claws to make a magic crossbow, built by General Cao Lo, that could kill hundreds of enemies with one shot. The king\u2019s daughter, My Chau, married Trong Thuy, son of the invading general Trieu Da. Trong Thuy secretly swapped the claw, the crossbow failed, and Au Lac fell. My Chau was killed by her father, and Trong Thuy, full of remorse, drowned himself in the well that still stands in front of the temple. Locals still tell the story at Ngoc Well and the small My Chau shrine.<\/p>\n Most visits centre on the Upper Temple (Den Thuong<\/em>) dedicated to An Duong Vuong, the half-moon pond with Ngoc Well, the shrine to My Chau under an old banyan tree, the Ngu Trieu Di Quy communal house and a small exhibition of finds. Around them, green ramparts, rice fields and village lanes make Co Loa feel far from the city, even though it is under an hour away.<\/p>\n Our Co Loa countryside tours visit by vintage army jeep or as a passenger on an electric scooter, including a version with our Green Sisters female riders, combined with rice fields, a village market and a lotus garden.<\/p>\n Co Loa lies about 17 to 20 km north of the Old Quarter, across the Red River in Dong Anh, so it is under an hour away by car, jeep or scooter. Weekday mornings are quietest; the big Co Loa festival falls around the 6th day of the first lunar month. Allow 1.5 to 2 hours to see the temples, the Ngoc Well and the spiral earthen ramparts, and pair it with the surrounding rice fields and village lanes for a proper half-day in the countryside.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" L’antique forteresse h\u00e9lico\u00efdale en terre du roi An Duong Vuong, capitale du royaume d’Au Lac il y a plus de 2 000 ans, dans la campagne au nord de Hano\u00ef.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":28,"menu_order":5,"template":"","eta_destination":[9],"class_list":["post-159","eta_place","type-eta_place","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ecotripasia.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/eta_place\/159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ecotripasia.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/eta_place"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ecotripasia.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/eta_place"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ecotripasia.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/eta_place\/159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":196,"href":"https:\/\/ecotripasia.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/eta_place\/159\/revisions\/196"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ecotripasia.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ecotripasia.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"eta_destination","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ecotripasia.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/eta_destination?post=159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The legend of the magic crossbow<\/h3>\n
What you see at Co Loa today<\/h3>\n
Getting to Co Loa and when to go<\/h2>\n