DAY 14
(Reading time: 5 minutes)
The historic city of Suwon is surrounded by 5.74 kilometers of walls. The entire complex is known as Suwon Hwaseong Fortress. It was built between 1794 and 1796 by King Jeongjo to protect the city. He intended to designate it as the new capital instead of Seoul due to its strategic location. However, this never happened, as the king passed away shortly after its completion.
You can walk the entire fortress without getting lost. The walls are continuous (with one exception, as mentioned below), the terrain is straightforward, and it’s suitable even for less fit individuals.
The fortress is marked by four majestic gates:
We started at the southern Paldalmun Gate, which stands in the middle of a roundabout. There’s no crosswalk, underpass, or overpass leading to it. Common sense suggests that you’re not meant to approach the gate. Of course, there’s always someone who ignores the obvious. One person, with uncoordinated hops, disrupted the heavy traffic flow, endangering themselves and others, just to get somewhere they weren’t supposed to be. Embarrassing inappropriate behavior …and we all say thank you.
From the southern gate, we climbed left up a steep incline and then turned left again at the wall’s southwestern pavilion, the farthest point of the fortification. We took the same path back, a bit of a detour, but we wanted to complete the full circuit.
The stretch from the southern gate toward the western gate is the highest, greenest, and least crowded. We barely encountered anyone, except for maintenance workers replacing dusty banners bearing the fortress’s logo with clean or newly washed ones.
The fortress includes more than just high walls: command posts, guard and signal towers, arrow-launching platforms, and hidden supply corridors. Every point is equipped with informational panels in Korean and English.
From the highest part of the fortress, you can see an endless sprawl of apartment buildings. Besides that, we also saw South Korean military helicopters engaged in training exercises—a more frequent occurrence than you’d think.
From Janganmun Gate (north) onward, we encountered more people, though it still felt sparsely populated. Koreans (and possibly other Asian nations) generally don’t enjoy wandering around “just for the sake of it.” Walking the entire circuit is a waste of time to them—they’d rather visit the most popular section, snap some photos, grab an Americano at a café, and head to another attraction. Plus, the walls are outdoors, unprotected from the sun, which increases the risk of unwanted tanning or forces you to carry an umbrella for shade.
Most of the few people we passed were Asian tourists, though not Korean. Many were resting at a favorite spot by the Hwahongmun floodgate, which regulates the flow of Suwoncheon stream. Underneath its roof, you’ll find a platform where you can sit, lie down, or take photos—but you must remove your shoes before entering! Students also frequent the area since there’s a school nearby.
See that balloon in the distance in the photo below?
Meet Flying Suwon—a tethered hot air balloon with a circular platform that holds up to 30 passengers. It rises to 150 meters, offering a panoramic view of the fortress and beyond. Naturally, we couldn’t skip this.
Tickets are purchased from a vending machine (20,000 won per person for a 10-minute flight—an absolute steal!), and you wait in a lounge. At first, we were the only ones there, and had it not been for three Japanese tourists arriving at the last minute, we might have had a VIP flight for just the two of us. 🙂
You can freely walk around the platform, and safety measures are minimal. During ascent and descent, staff distribute passengers evenly around the edge to balance the weight.
Looking directly down through the center of the platform might unsettle some, but the views in every other direction are breathtaking.
From the last section of the wall between the eastern and southern gates, we spotted an unnaturally large church towering somewhat inappropriately over the older houses.
And this is what current South Korea looks like—a blend of tradition and modernity. A few older, smaller houses overshadowed by towering apartment blocks, ultra-modern Christian churches in a formerly Buddhist society, historical landmarks repeatedly reconstructed after wars devastated the country, countless new construction projects underway, and everything under the watchful eyes of Big Brother CCTV cameras.
After several hours at a leisurely pace, we returned to the southern Paldalmun Gate, the starting point of our circuit.
While we saw very few people during the day, the evening was the exact opposite. The district where we stayed came alive with nightlife. People crowded bars, bistros, and open-air restaurants, eating and eating and eating… The air buzzed with noise, laughter, music, and the aroma of fried chicken.
One facepalm moment to end the day—there’s nothing like confidently walking two kilometers to and from a public laundry, only to realize the next evening that there was another laundry RIGHT NEXT TO THE HOTEL. We just needed to turn right instead of left…
-endy-
DONKEY’S SPECIAL
-mj-