Three days in Jeonju: the town that thinks it invented Korean food, and might be right
Two nights in the hanok quarter, everything within walking distance, and a last morning given over entirely to eating.
- Length
- 3 days, 2 nights
- Where you stay
- Jeonju
- Places
- 6 across 3 days
Jeonju is where the Joseon royal family came from, and it has spent six hundred years being quietly pleased about it. The old quarter holds more than eight hundred traditional houses, tiled and low, on lanes narrow enough that a car has to think about it.
It is also, by common consent, the best place to eat in South Korea, and it was made a UNESCO city of gastronomy in 2012 in case anybody wanted to argue. Bibimbap is the local dish and the version served here is the one every other city is copying. Around that sits a whole ecosystem of rice wine taverns, dumpling counters, croquette windows and bakeries with queues down the street.
Be warned that the hanok quarter is thoroughly commercial: costume rental, souvenir shops, coach parties by eleven in the morning. Go early, stay late, walk one street back from the main lane, and it is still a lovely place. Two nights is exactly enough.
Highlights
- Eight hundred tiled roofs in one quarter, best seen from a cafe terrace above them
- The shrine holding the portrait of the man who founded the Joseon dynasty
- A Confucian school on the edge of the village, empty while the main lane is packed
- Bibimbap in the town that made it famous, and a kettle of makgeolli after dark
- A last morning of croquettes, dumplings and choco pies, eaten walking
Where to stay
Jeonju, two nights
Sleep in the hanok quarter if you can. Dozens of the old houses take guests, with paper doors, a heated floor and a courtyard, and staying in one means you are inside the village in the two hours of the day when nobody else is: before nine in the morning and after the last coach leaves.
The alternative is the hotel district near the bus terminals, which is cheaper, duller and a fifteen-minute bus ride away. The city is small enough that either works.
Day by day
Day 1 in Jeonju
Gyeonggijeon, the cathedral, and the lanes between them
Everything today is inside a few hundred metres. Start at the shrine: Gyeonggijeon was built to house the portrait of Yi Seong-gye, the general who took the throne in 1392 and founded the dynasty that ran Korea until 1910, and his clan came from this town. The grounds are wooded and calm, the portrait museum behind the hall is better than it needs to be, and the bamboo at the back is where everyone takes photographs.
Across the road is the cathedral, a red brick pile from 1914 in a mix of Romanesque and Byzantine, built on the ground where Korean Catholics were executed a century before that. It is an odd and rather moving neighbour for a royal shrine.
Then simply walk. The quarter is over eight hundred houses deep, most of them Joseon-era in origin, and the pleasure is in turning off the main lane into the ones where people still live. Get above it at some point: several cafes have roof terraces, and the tiled roofs read as a single grey wave from up there.
- 09:30
Jeonju Gyeonggigeon Shrine
HistoricOpen from nine and quiet for the first hour. Portrait hall, the royal portrait museum behind it, and the bamboo grove at the rear.
- 11:15
Jeondong Cathedral
ReligiousStraight across the junction from the shrine gate. Ten minutes to look, longer if there is a service on and you sit at the back.
- 13:00
Bibimbap for a late lunch
EatThe brass-bowl version, mixed at the table, in one of the old restaurants in the lanes behind the shrine. Expect a queue at one o'clock and none at three.
- 14:30
Jeonju Hanok Village
OtherWalk the quarter in the late afternoon as the day trippers leave. Aim for the roof terrace of a cafe on the slope for the view over the tiles, then stay for the lanterns coming on.
With more time: The makgeolli taverns are north of the quarter and are the evening this town is known for. Order one kettle between two, wait for the side dishes to arrive, and order a second.
Day 2 in Jeonju
The Confucian school, the crafts centre, and the park after dark
The village empties out at the edges, and today follows the quiet parts. The hyanggyo, the state Confucian school, sits at the eastern end past the last of the souvenir shops: a walled compound of lecture halls and shrine buildings, with the coach parties nowhere in sight and old ginkgo trees in the courtyards.
The intangible heritage centre north of the village is the surprise of this trip. Korea keeps a formal register of living crafts and performing arts, and this is where they are taught, recorded and exhibited: hanji papermaking, court music, lacquer, embroidery. It costs nothing and takes as long as you let it.
Finish north at Deokjin Park, which is a lake more than a park, covered in lotus in summer and crossed by a bridge that is lit at night. Locals row duck boats on it. It is not a sight in any serious sense and it is a very pleasant hour at dusk.
- 10:00
Jeonju Hyanggyo
HistoricTen minutes' walk east from the quarter and a different world. Free, rarely busy, and at its best in the first week of November when the ginkgos drop.
- 12:00
Kongnamul gukbap for lunch
EatBean sprout soup with rice, a raw egg stirred in at the table, and a squid side dish. The local hangover cure, eaten at any hour.
- 13:30
National Intangible Heritage Center
VisitThe national centre for Korea's registered living crafts and performances, with workshops and changing exhibitions. Free, and worth two hours if a demonstration is running.
- 17:00
DeokJin Park
VisitA city lake with a bridge over it, duck boats, and a fountain that is lit after dark. Twenty minutes by bus from the village, and the right way to end a slow day.
With more time: With a spare afternoon instead, the provincial museum on the western edge of the city holds the archaeology and calligraphy of the whole Jeolla region, and is a proper rainy-day option.
Day 3 in Jeonju
Croquettes, choco pies and the bus to the station
The last morning is a food crawl, which in Jeonju is not a novelty but the correct way to spend three hours. Everything below is in or beside the hanok quarter and none of it needs booking.
Start with a croquette from the window on the main lane, move on to pan-fried shrimp dumplings, and finish at the bakery that claims the choco pie: two biscuits, cream and jam, coated in chocolate, sold in boxes that most Korean visitors take home by the armful.
- 10:00
Gyodong croquette
EatA counter selling nothing but croquettes, in a dozen fillings, hot from the fryer. Eat it standing up on the corner like everyone else.
- 11:00
PNB Choco Pie Cafe
EatThe original bakery of the Jeonju choco pie, with coffee if you need it. Buy a box for the train; you will be glad of it around Daejeon.
- 12:30
Bus 1000 to Jeonju Station
TravelTwenty-five minutes from the village to the train, or ten by taxi. The bus terminals are on the same route if you are heading on by coach.
With more time: With a later train, the noodle shops behind the village do a kalguksu heavy with perilla that is worth changing your plans for, and the queue moves faster than it looks.
Before you go
Getting in
KTX trains reach Jeonju Station in about two hours from Seoul, mostly departing from Yongsan rather than Seoul Station. Express buses from the Central City terminal take longer and cost a fraction of the fare, and they run constantly.
Coming from Busan or Gyeongju is harder than it looks on a map: the fast lines run north to south on the other side of the country, so expect a change at Osong and most of a morning. The bus is often the simpler answer.
Getting around
The hanok quarter is walkable end to end in twenty minutes and nothing in this trip is far from it. The 1000 bus, painted like a trolley, links the train station and both bus terminals to the village, and city buses cost about 1,300 won a ride.
A taxi from the station to the village is a fixed few thousand won and worth it with luggage. Once you are in the quarter, leave the car and the bus alone.
When to go
Spring and autumn, as everywhere in Korea. The village looks best in late October and early November, when the ginkgos around the Confucian school turn and the light gets low.
The film festival lands at the start of May and fills every room in town, which is either the reason to come or the week to avoid. Summer is humid and the lanes get very crowded at weekends whatever the weather.
What to order
Bibimbap first: rice, vegetables, raw beef and egg in a brass bowl, mixed at the table with chilli paste. Then kongnamul gukbap, a bean sprout soup eaten for breakfast and after drinking, which is the dish locals actually eat most.
In the evening, makgeolli. The rice wine taverns here work on an old system: order a kettle and the table fills up with side dishes you did not ask for, and each further kettle brings a better round of them.
Jeonju is a small town with one great quarter and an unusually serious attitude to dinner. Treat the food as the itinerary and the sights as what you do between meals, and it makes complete sense.
Get up early on at least one morning. The lanes before nine, with the shutters down and somebody sweeping a courtyard, are the version of the village that the photographs are trying to be.
Make it your trip
Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.
Common questions
- Is Jeonju worth two nights, or is one enough?
- Two. One night gives you the shrine, the main lane and a bowl of bibimbap, which is the coach-trip version of this town. The second night is what buys you the quiet edges, an evening in a rice wine tavern and the morning when the lanes belong to residents again.
- Should I stay in a hanok?
- If you can. They are small, the floor is heated rather than the room, and the walls are paper, so pack earplugs at a weekend. In return you are inside the village before it opens and after it closes, which is when it is worth being there.
- Do I need to rent a hanbok?
- No, though half the village will be wearing one. Rental shops are everywhere and cheap, it is mostly Korean visitors doing it, and nobody minds either way.
- How does Jeonju fit into a Korean itinerary?
- It sits on the western line, so it pairs naturally with Seoul and awkwardly with Busan and Gyeongju in the east. Two nights on the way south from Seoul is the usual shape. Copy these days into JourneyComposer if you want to slot them into a longer route.