Gyeongju

Gyeongju was the capital of Silla for close to a thousand years, and the unusual thing about it is that the evidence was never built over. The centre is a low town wrapped around Daereungwon, a park of grassed royal burial mounds you walk between, with Cheomseongdae — a stone observatory older than most of what survives in Europe — standing in a field a few minutes away. One of the mounds is open, so you can see the timber chamber and the gold inside it.

The two sites everyone knows are not in town. Bulguksa, the terraced temple, is about sixteen kilometres south-east, and Seokguram, the granite grotto Buddha, is a further climb up the mountain behind it. Together they are a half day by bus or taxi and worth doing as their own morning rather than squeezed around the centre.

That split is the planning point. The mound park, Cheomseongdae, the Woljeonggyo bridge and Anapji pond are flat, close together and best done by bicycle, ideally in the late afternoon and again after dark when the pond is lit. Bulguksa and Seokguram are a separate excursion with their own transport. Two nights gives you one of each without a rushed day.

Gyeongju's KTX station, Singyeongju, is a short bus ride outside town and sits on the Seoul–Busan line, which makes the stop cheap in travel time: roughly two hours from Seoul and half an hour from Busan. It is the reason a southern route stops here rather than running straight through.