Gapyeong

Where it sits. Gapyeong is a mountainous county in the far east of Gyeonggi Province, about 60 km northeast of Seoul, pressed against the Gangwon border. The Bukhan River runs through it, dammed at Cheongpyeong in the 1940s and again downstream, so that the valley floor is a chain of green reservoirs with wooded ridges rising steeply from the water. Myeongjisan reaches 1,267 metres in the north of the county. Roughly four fifths of the land is forest, which is why a county of fewer than 65,000 residents receives several million visitors a year.

Where Korean screen tourism began. Namiseom, the half-moon island in the Bukhan River off the county's eastern edge, took its shape when the Cheongpyeong dam flooded the land around a hillock holding the reputed grave of General Nam I, a sixteenth-century commander. It was planted with avenues of metasequoia, ginkgo, birch and pine, and in 2002 the KBS drama Winter Sonata used those avenues for the sequences that made it famous across East Asia — the walk along the metasequoia road, the snow on the ginkgo lane, the bench by the water. The drama drew the first large wave of Japanese and then Chinese visitors to Korea for a filming location rather than a monument, and the pattern it established is now an industry. Namiseom leans into it: the island markets itself as the Naminara Republic, issues a passport-style ticket at the jetty, and stamps it on arrival.

On screen, beyond the island. Petite France, a cluster of French-styled buildings on a hillside above the Cheongpyeong reservoir, opened as a cultural village and has been used repeatedly by production: the drama Beethoven Virus, Secret Garden, My Love from the Star and a long run of Running Man episodes were filmed among its lanes and courtyards, and the site now sells itself almost entirely on those credits. The Garden of Morning Calm, founded in 1996 on a steep hillside near Chukryeongsan, appears constantly in dramas and advertising, particularly during its winter lighting season. The point worth grasping is that these are not incidental locations. Several of them were built or expanded as visitor attractions and then offered to production companies, so the causation runs in both directions.

The other history. In April 1951 the Kapyong valley was the site of one of the sharpest actions of the Korean War. The 3rd Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment and the 2nd Battalion of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, supported by New Zealand artillery and American armour, held the hills above the river against the Chinese spring offensive and covered the withdrawal of retreating units toward Seoul. Both battalions received a United States Presidential Unit Citation. Memorials to the Australian, Canadian, New Zealand and British contributions stand near the town, and Australian and Canadian visitors still come for them.

What you actually see today. Namiseom is reached by a five-minute ferry from the Gapyeong-side jetty, or by a zipline that runs from a tower on the bank directly onto the island — a genuinely useful shortcut as well as a novelty. The island is flat, circular, walkable in ninety minutes, and full of ostriches, rabbits and squirrels alongside the trees. Jaraseom, an island in the river beside Gapyeong town, hosts the Jarasum International Jazz Festival each autumn and is otherwise a quiet campground. The Gapyeong rail bike runs pedal-driven carriages along a disused section of the old Gyeongchun railway. Cheongpyeong reservoir has boat hire, waterside cafes and a dense belt of pension guesthouses, and the county's dakgalbi and freshwater fish restaurants cluster along the same road.

Getting there and timing. The ITX-Cheongchun express from Yongsan or Cheongnyangni reaches Gapyeong station in a little over an hour, and the Gyeongchun subway line covers the same route more slowly for a metro fare. From the station, the Gapyeong City Tour bus loops between Namiseom, Petite France, the Garden of Morning Calm and Jaraseom on a single day ticket, which is far simpler than local buses or taxis. Mid-October to early November is the peak, when the ridges turn and the metasequoia avenue goes copper; late May and June bring the gardens into full flower with a fraction of the crowds. Winter has its own market: the snow scenes that made Winter Sonata famous are the reason a certain generation of visitors comes in January. Weekends in autumn genuinely saturate the ferry queue, and arriving before 10:00 makes a substantial difference.