Vietnam Honeymoon Package: 7 Days, Sapa to Hoi An and Da Nang

A driver with your names on a sign meets you at Noi Bai International Airport and drives you into Hanoi, about 45 minutes with normal traffic. There is one appointment in the diary and it is a gentle one: an hour of traditional Vietnamese massage at Sen Tai Thu, a spa in the city. You each choose the style you prefer, with hot herbal compresses, aromatherapy oils or foot reflexology on offer, so a stiff back and tired feet can be treated side by side.

The rest of the day is yours. Hoan Kiem Lake and the Old Quarter make the easy first walk, and an early night is no bad idea: tomorrow starts with the road to the mountains.

You leave Hanoi for the north-west, on the expressway to Lao Cai by the Chinese border and then up the switchbacks to Sapa, a hill town at around 1,500 metres that the French laid out as a summer station a century ago. On arrival there is a welcome drink and a short briefing on the two mountain days.

The afternoon is a walk with a local guide down to Cat Cat, the Hmong village at the bottom of the valley beneath the town. The path drops past terraced fields and wooden houses to a stream where a waterfall tumbles beside an old French bridge, and the village workshops show hemp weaving and indigo dyeing on the way. It is downhill most of the way, with steps, so take it at whatever pace suits you both.

Fansipan is the roof of Indochina: 3,143 metres, higher than any peak in Vietnam, Laos or Cambodia, and the cable car turns what used to be a two-day trek into a morning. The ride takes about 20 minutes and lands you at a station near 2,800 metres, where a group of pagodas and a large bronze Buddha sit on the ridge above the cloud.

From there the last stretch is on foot: roughly 600 stone steps to the summit marker, about an hour and a half there and back at a steady pace, with the Hoang Lien range falling away on both sides when the sky is clear. You ride the same cable car down and your driver takes you back to Hanoi, five to six hours by road, for the evening.

A short flight, a little over an hour in the air, takes you from Hanoi to Da Nang, the largest city on the central coast. The airport sits close to the centre, so the drive in is quick, and nothing is scheduled for the rest of the day.

Use it as the pause between the mountains and the two full days to come. My Khe beach runs along the city's eastern edge, the bridges over the Han River light up after dark and the Dragon Bridge breathes fire on weekend evenings (all optional, on your own). It is the one afternoon of the week with no guide and no plan, which is rather the point of it.

A drive of about 45 minutes south brings you to Cam Thanh, where channels of water coconut palm run out towards the mouth of the Thu Bon river. Local fishermen take you out in a round bamboo basket boat, show you how they cast a net and paddle you through the tunnels of palm fronds.

Hoi An Ancient Town follows, a trading port that kept its 17th- and 18th-century streets and has been UNESCO-listed since 1999. With your guide you see the Phuc Kien Assembly Hall of the Fujian Chinese traders, one of the old merchant houses (Phung Hung or Tan Ky) and the Japanese Covered Bridge, then wander the lanes and handicraft shops at your own pace. After a meal of Hoi An specialities you step into a small wooden boat on the Hoai River and release a flower lantern onto the water, the town's old wish-making custom, before the drive back to Da Nang.

The morning starts at the Marble Mountains, five limestone and marble hills just south of the city. You climb the steps of Thuy Son past pagodas and into Am Phu Cave, whose chambers stage the Buddhist underworld below and a climb towards heaven above, lit by a shaft of daylight at the top. Then the car runs out along Son Tra Peninsula to Linh Ung Pagoda, where the 67-metre Lady Buddha looks back across the bay to the city.

After a midday break you drive west to Ba Na Hills and ride the cable car up through the cloud to the old French hill station. The Golden Bridge, a walkway carried on two huge stone hands, is timed for late afternoon so that you watch the sun go down from it. There is time to walk the French Village, a rebuilt street of stone houses around a square, before the ride down and the drive back to Da Nang.

Nothing is fixed on the final morning. Depending on your flight time there may be room for a walk on the beach, a coffee by the river or a last look round Han Market for dried fruit and gifts (optional, on your own). Then it is a short ride with your driver to Da Nang International Airport, a few kilometres from the centre, where the tour ends.

If you would rather not leave the coast yet, we can add nights in Da Nang or Hoi An, or carry on to Hue over the Hai Van Pass, when you book.