Notre-Dame in Ho Chi Minh City is yet another little piece of Paris in Asia. The cathedral was built over 17 years in the second half of the 19th century. All materials for its construction were brought to Vietnam directly from France: the stained-glass windows came from Chartres, the brick from Marseille, and the masons were even brought in from the capital. The colonizers sought to outshine all the temples of Saigon that had existed before. And, interestingly, the red brick of Notre-Dame Cathedral still has not lost its brightness. The overall appearance even shocks travelers, who do not expect to see such a masterpiece of typically European architecture in the center of Ho Chi Minh City.
The cathedral’s interior, by contrast, is quite modest — which makes the stained-glass windows look all the more impressive against this background, depicting the Virgin Mary surrounded by barefoot Vietnamese peasant women.
The facade of the building is adorned with two towers, each 58 meters high. The bell tower behind the cathedral was completed later, and the space in front of it is decorated with a statue of the Virgin Mary. They say that in 2005 she “wept,” which brought literally thousands of new tourists and pilgrims to Vietnam.
