Gyeongju, a thousand years of Silla

For almost a thousand years Gyeongju was the capital of the Silla kingdom, and the town is often called a museum without walls — you cycle from one UNESCO site to the next through low streets and rice fields. The strangest and most beautiful sight is Daereungwon, a park of royal burial mounds: grass-covered hemispheres several storeys high, with one, Cheonmachong, opened so you can walk inside and see the gold crown and the painted heavenly horse that gave the tomb its name.

A short walk away stands Cheomseongdae, a bottle-shaped stone tower from the 7th century widely held to be the oldest surviving astronomical observatory in East Asia. Nearby, the pavilions of Donggung Palace are reflected in Wolji Pond — go after dark, when the reconstruction is lit and doubled in the water, and cross the restored wooden Woljeonggyo bridge on the way. Gyochon Hanok Village keeps the house of the Choi family, wealthy landowners for twelve generations, and pours its own rice wine.

The two masterpieces sit on Tohamsan, east of town. Bulguksa, with its stone terraces, twin pagodas and bridges of enlightenment, is the finest Buddhist temple in the country; above it, the Seokguram Grotto shelters a granite Buddha facing the sunrise over the East Sea, carved in the 8th century and still astonishing. Namsan mountain, meanwhile, is scattered with hundreds of rock-cut Buddhas and pagodas along its trails.

Come for cherry blossom around Bomun Lake in April, eat ssambap and a box of Hwangnam bread, and let Gyeongju slow the pace of your Korean route.