We had breakfast in a sunny garden, then coffee and pastries at Love Blanc cafe. In the afternoon, we hiked up the valley and waterfalls of Naeyeonsan mountain. Our evening meal was at a resort before retiring to our alpine chalet-esque accommodation! This was the fourth day of me and Romana’s seven-day road trip to the east coast.
Love Blanc cafe
We had a quick breakfast snack and drink on the picnic table overlooking the sea. It was a beautiful warm day again! Next, we went down to Goraebul Beach (고래불해수욕장) that we’d walked to last night. In the full morning sun, we could see how vast this sandy place was. I imagine it’s super busy on the weekends. At that time, however, it was empty and serene. There were view back to the huge mountains to the west. Then we drove on to our main brunch spot Love Blanc cafe (러블랑). It’s one of those mega cafe; huge seating area, big windows, great views, lots of baked items and coffee options. These places are also only usually accessible by car. We got nice coffees and a selection of pastries for brunch, plus some items for eating on our hike later. Romana managed to get some remote office work done while we were there.
Naeyeonsan Mountain
The drive to Naeyeonsan Mountain (내연산) took about thirty minutes. I was excited about doing this hike with Romana because I remembered the waterfalls being so pretty (I’d been in 2021). We packed our water shoes and picnic and set off up the trail. We made good time going up the stream; it’s not very hilly and there’s plenty to see if you like water! We stopped for our picnic at one of the main waterfall attractions, (Gwaneum Pokpo Waterfall 관음폭포), with its impressive suspension bridge that leads to a powerful waterfall behind the impressively high cliffs, rocks and streams in the front foreground. We paddled and let the small fish nibble our toes, and ate most of our snacks.
The trail from here only goes steeply up and up, and we weren’t going to do that today! We made our way back to the car, stopping a few more times on the way to play in the water. It was perfect on a day like this.
Juwangsan Mountain area
Back in the car and an hour’s drive along very scenic mountain roads to Juwangsan Mountain to Slow City Pension (슬로시티펜션) where we’d booked the next two nights. The accommodation was in a triangular wooden building, similar to what you might see in the Alps of Europe. Once checked in, we drove to Sono Belle Hotel (소노벨 청송), a nearby resort, to have a lovely meal of beef in soup with noodles (bulgogi 불고기). It was quite a luxurious resort with lots of facilities. We played a few games of ping-pong in the basement. I didn’t win…
Back at our (cheaper!) accommodation, we drank and ate snacks on our terrace and talked about tomorrow’s hike.
Places visited on this trip: