Notre Dame Cathedral, one of the most unique works in Saigon from the French colonists, always attracts the attention of both Vietnamese and foreign tourists because of its historical and cultural values from historical relics maintained in the Cathedral until now. Coming to gorgeous Sai Gon, tourists seem to dive in such many modern entertainment activities, but forget about the original values, another aspect of Vietnam, should be discovered if wanting to truly understand about Vietnamese people and heroic pasts from the wars. After the invasion of French in Sai Gon, the French colonists built a Cathedral on the road number 5, Ho Chi Minh city, as the place of worship for the Catholics in the Far East Area, French… In addition to the purpose of worshiping places for believers, the construction of the cathedral also witnesses the greatness of French civilization before the colonists.

The first impression about the Notre Dame Cathedral is its sophisticated design and architecture. The cathedral has a circumference of 91m, 35.5 m and a height of 21 m. Especially, tourists will be impressed by design of the Cathedral’s foundation to load of the entire Cathedral structure above. In the outside, from the wall to the whole roof is a bright red brick, creating the attractive appearance for the Cathedral. There are some broken tiles, with the letters Guichard Carvin, Marseille St André France printed on top, and some other tiles with the word, Saigon. It is possible that this piece of tile was produced later in Saigon to replace broken pieces during the Second World War. The stained system on the wall consists of 56 units, depicting characters and events from the wars. 31 pink round vent holes, straight into the wall very smart as the pattern on the silk screen.

Especially, the delicate beauty of the Cathedral is from the beautiful images on the lightening windows made from 25 multi-colored glasses and the very smooth appearances of many patterns on the silk screen. The interior of the cathedral was designed as a main lobe, followed by two rows of chapels. The chapel can accommodate about 1,200 people, with two rectangular pillars on each side representing the twelve apostles. Right after the main column is a corridor with quite a lot of compartments. From there, there are more than 20 altars and the small sophisticated statues, display the mysterious culture of Vietnam from the war. The cathedral’s lighting system was originally from electricity, without candles, and mostly from the daylight through glass windows, creating the magical looks for the Cathedral in the daytime.

Coming to Notre Dame Cathedral, tourists will blow their mind with two bell towers built 57 m in height. On each side of the bell tower was placed at 3.5 m in height. The main bell tower had 6 bells turning the sound like the basic rhymth of the song, Sol, La, Si, Do, Re, Mi. Also, in front of the cathedral is a park. In the middle of the park is the statue of The Lady of Peace. The statue was carved in Italy, moved to Saigon in 1959, by waterway. The image of the statue built 4.6 m in height, weighing 5.8 tons, holding the globe, with the eyes of Mary looking at heaven as praying for Vietnam and for the world to be peaceful. This is a truly great architectural work of historical and architectural art.

Let’s discover the historical value and admire the French ancient architectures right at Notre Dame Cathedral!