South Korea
Buyeo
Lotus flowers choke the pond of a kingdom that fell fourteen centuries ago.
The lotus grows so thick it hides the water of Gungnamji, Korea's oldest artificial pond. This was a capital once; when it fell in 660 AD, the story goes that three thousand court ladies leapt from the cliff rather than be taken.
Buyeo was the Baekje kingdom's final capital, and its World Heritage remains spread through the modern riverside town as fragments that assemble on foot: Busosanseong's low fortress paths, the Gwanbuk-ri palace ground, Jeongnimsa's stone pagoda, the royal tombs. Nakhwaam rock above the river carries the recorded fall-of-the-city tradition, reached by ferry, and Gungnamji floods with lotus each summer. Quieter and less restored than Gyeongju, Buyeo reads more like a wound than a monument, which is its power.
Solo
A solo circuit can linger over modest earthworks that reveal themselves through maps and patient reading.
Couple
Follow the Baekje sites in historical order, sharing the detective work of reconstructing a vanished capital.
- Four components of the UNESCO Baekje areas spread through one town.
- Gungnamji is Korea's oldest artificial pond, lotus-flooded in summer.
- Nakhwaam rock carries the fall of the capital in one story.
- Buyeo's ruins stay ruins, quieter and rawer than Gyeongju.
In Buyeo, lotus-leaf rice arrives steamed with glutinous rice, jujubes, ginkgo nuts and seeds inside the leaf.
Goodtrae Food Street also has dolssambap set meals, pairing hot-stone rice with vegetables and numerous side dishes.
Mercedes
Argentina
Pulperías where gauchos still drink behind wooden counters worn smooth since the 1800s.
Freixo de Espada à Cinta
Portugal
Almond blossom turns a remote valley white each late winter beneath a seven-sided tower.
Sweetheart Abbey
Scotland
A widow built this abbey around her husband's embalmed heart — the red sandstone still blushes.
Richmond
England
A Norman castle above a river gorge, with a Georgian theatre still staging plays.
Cheongsando
South Korea
Korea's first Slow City walks at the speed of its stone-walled fields.
Jeungdo
South Korea
Checkerboard salt pans mirror the sky on an island that farms the sea.
Buseoksa
South Korea
One of Korea's oldest wooden halls has faced an ocean of ridges since 1376.
Seonunsa Temple
South Korea
For two weeks each September the temple valley floor turns spider-lily red.