Da Lat was built as a hill station for French residents escaping the heat of the coast, and this estate is what survives of it: a cluster of 1920s and 1930s villas on a pine-covered slope, restored with their fireplaces, verandas and clawfoot baths intact. Each villa is still a house, so a family or a group can take one whole.
The town below is cool year round, which is the point – flower gardens, coffee farms, waterfalls and a market that runs late. It is the standard break between the coast and Ho Chi Minh City.