On Wednesday 23 May 2007, the town of Blois welcomed a delegation from the town of Hué (Vietnam) led by its mayor, Nguyen Van Cao. A cooperation agreement was signed in order to encourage exchanges between the two towns. Nicolas Perruchot, the mayor of Blois, presented the first programme under the agreement, welcoming two young Vietnamese students to the Ecole Nationale des Ingénieurs du Val de Loire for a five-year course in engineering.
The two towns have many points in common. Whilst Blois is a
royal town, Hué is an imperial one, and was home to the last
imperial dynasty until 1945. The town was included on the UNESCO
list of World Heritage sites in 1993. Lastly, it too is divided by
a river, the so-called "Perfume River".
In both cases, those in power have made use of the river to
magnify the region in both political and cultural terms, to ensure
that its influence extends well beyond the borders of its own
country.
Further information:
Hué monument complexes, on the World Heritage Centre
website
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/678
and a virtual tour of the monuments:
http://www.world-heritage-tour.org/asia/vn/hue/map.html
Town of Blois
http://www.ville-blois.fr/
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