On the road again, heading up to Suwon, our final destination.
Suwon has the last remaining walled fortress in Korea, so we thought it worthy of a look.
As expected the KTX train arrived on time and soon had us in Suwon and unusually we decided to take a taxi to the hotel, the Top Cloud Hotel, quite a bargain at KWN4,700. Arriving early, way before check in we asked if we could store our cases and set off to explore the fortress, but surprisingly they gave us our key and we checked in. By 11:30 we were on our way down the High Street to find the Fortress.
Hwaseong Fortress circles through the town and is pretty imposing. Crossing the road and cutting through one of the gates, we paid our KWN1,000 each and headed up on to the wall. Our map indicated a market about half way around, so we aimed for this as a good place to break for lunch.
Following the walled fortress take you high above the city giving you amazing views. With clear blue skies and sunshine, we were blessed with great views of Suwon.
Our lunch stop was a delight too. Discovering that the market was only clothing and household goods we eventually found a tiny cafe by following young guys carrying trays loaded with food for the market traders. We were warmly welcomed and seated without a common word between us. We chose our Bibimbap by taking the waiter outside and pointing to a picture of our choice in the window. Our lunch was truly delicious and cheap to.
So, fed and watered we took a diversion from the wall and visited the palace in the town centre, the reason for the fortified walls we’d just been walking. The Hwaseong Temporary Palace, was delightful and so peaceful.
After the Palace visit we picked up the wall again by the Archery Center where we took respite from the sunshine in the cafe, enjoying a couple of cool drinks. Then we finished our walk around the wall, ending up back where we started from.
Returning to the hotel we packed our bags for our final journey back to Soeul and had a brief rest before taking the short walk back to the fortress gate to admire the beauty of it and the wall illuminated against the night sky. It was a truly wonderful sight.
Our evening was topped off with a coffee and cake in Ediya Coffee before returning to the hotel.
mrandmrsyoung 