Cho Da Lat market is housed in a charmless reinforced concrete structure, but offers the usual entertainment in its staggering range of fruit and vegetables as well as some interesting souvenirs such as watergourds, lacquerware, and hilltribe backpacks and fabrics on its upper level, linked by a raised walkway to the top of Le Dai Hanh.

Cycling or walking round glassy, man-made Lake Xuan Huong is a pleasant pastime and takes in Da Lat's flower gardens (daily 6.30am-6pm) at its northeastern corner, from where you continue south down Ba Huyen Thanh Quan, with the option of striking east up Nguyen Trai to Ga Da Lat , the city's Art Deco train station, built in 1938. Only two trains are kept operational, running a shuttle service ($4 per person; 16 round trips daily, but trains leave according to demand) through market gardens to the village of Trai Mat , a few kilometres away; the train idles for thirty minutes - time enough to take a look at Linh Phuoc Pagoda - before returning to Da Lat. Back at the southwest corner of the lake, the splendidly restored Dalat Palace Hotel stands on Tran Phu; now part of the Sofitel Hotel empire, the original was the social heart of colonial-era Da Lat. Across the road, Da Lat's dusty pink cathedral , completed in 1942, is dedicated to Saint Nicholas, protector of the poor; its seventy stained-glass windows were mostly crafted in Grenoble.

The nautical portholes punched into its walls, and the mast-like pole sprouting from its roof give Dinh III (daily 7am-5pm), erstwhile summer palace of Emperor Bao Dai, the distinct look of a ship's bridge. Reached by bearing left onto Le Hong Phong 500m west of the cathedral, and then left again when you see the wide mansion housing the Pasteur Institute to your right, the palace was erected between 1933 and 1938 to provide Bao Dai with a bolt hole between elephant-slaughtering sessions. Once inside, you have the chance to nose into his working room, festivities room and imperial bedrooms.

Dropping in at Lam Ty Ni Pagoda at the western edge of town, north of Le Hong Phong on Thien My, represents one of the unlikeliest and most delightful attractions of a stay in Da Lat. The pagoda is home to Vien Thuc, the so-called "mad monk" of Da Lat, who is also a poet, gardener, builder and artist. His studio is stacked with over 100,000 abstract watercolours, all for sale, and Vien Thuc relishes visitors, for whom he gives a full conducted tour in English. His paintings flank the walls of the pagoda too, and the canopy around the altar depicting birds carrying Buddhist sutras is also his handiwork.