Last week I took a solo trip to Namwon for the day. Namwon is a city of about 80,000 people that lies northwest of Gwangju. I mainly was interested in visiting because of its proximity to Jirisan National Park, one of the oldest national parks in Korea.
I left Gwangju Bus Terminal at 7:25 a.m. and arrived at Namwon around 8:30. It was a much quicker trip than I expected, which was nice. I wanted to head straight to the park so I was able to get a lot of hiking done; however, when I made it to the nearest park entrance, the roads were all iced over and snowy and it became evident I wasn’t going to be able to do that much hiking that day. I was able to see a waterfall which was cool! Although I was pretty disappointed about not being able to hike, now that I know how accessible the park is from Gwangju, I’ll definitely have to visit again in better weather.
Back in the city, I headed to Gwanghallu Garden. This garden is home to the Gwanghallu Pavilion which was first built in 1419 and then later reconstructed in 1638. The garden itself is famous for being the meeting place of Lee Mong-ryong and Chunhyang who are lovers from a Korean folk story. All throughout the garden and even the city are statues of them as hearts, making it apparent why Namwon is referred to as the “City of Love.”
In addition, the garden also had various things to see like a traditional Korean village, multiple pavilions, sculptures, and traditional games. The games looked similar to our modern day washers, but even harder.
After strolling through the garden a bit, I stopped by a cafe to get a hot drink and warm up a bit.
Then I carried on my way and walked along the river for a bit until I reached a fun park that I decided to investigate. I hiked up a ways and found a good overlook of the city.
I hung out at the park for a while and then decided to continue on my way to Deogeum Peak, which was a little hill/mountain right by the river that I’d read about on a blog. Since I wasn’t able to hike in the morning I was looking forward to doing some sort of hiking even though it wasn’t exactly what I originally had in mind.
The hike up to Deogeum Peak ended up being really nice! It was fairly busy and had different trails that branched off of it. It took me about 40 minutes to hike up to the very top, but that was with a few detours down other trails. The view from the peak was amazing! I could see the entire city on one side and the snowy mountain peaks from Jirisan National Park on the other! I hung out at the peak and enjoyed the view, then made my way back down the mountain.
After that I walked back to the bus station to go back to Gwangju. Although my trip hadn’t been exactly what I expected, I still really enjoyed Namwon and all of its charms. I will definitely be back to hike Jirisan properly!
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