Quang Tri once boasted an important citadel, but little of its old glory remains. In the Easter Offensive of 1972, North Vietnamese forces laid siege to and then captured the town. This provoked carpet bombing and artillery shelling by the US and South Vietnamese forces, which all but destroyed Quang Tri. Remnants of the ancient moat, ramparts and gates of the citadel remain, with cannons outside and a small museum. It’s off Ð Tran Hung Dao, 1.6km north of Hwy 1.
The citadel was a crumbling, but largely intact, complex until the offensive, when it was levelled by a constant hail of 2,000lb bombs; nothing was left standing. Vietnamese sources say that explosive weapons with the equivalent yield of seven nuclear weapons (of the size that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki) levelled the city of Quang Tri.
Outside Quang Tri, along Hwy 1 towards Hue, is the skeleton of Long Hung Church. It bears countless bullet holes and mortar damage from the 1972 bombardment. The Quang Tri bus station is about 1km from Hwy 1, but buses can just as easily be flagged down on the side of the road. Some DMZ tours stop here.
