Cheongpung Cultural Complex

When the Chungju dam closed in the mid-1980s it flooded a long stretch of the Namhan valley, and the villages of Cheongpung went under. What could be moved was moved: a magistrate's office, a guest house, a school of Confucian learning, several traditional houses, stone markers, tombstones and a pavilion, dismantled and rebuilt on higher ground above the new shoreline, along with a small museum of what was salvaged. The result is a slightly artificial place - buildings from different villages standing together in an order they never had - but honest about being so, and the view over the lake from the Hanbyeongnu pavilion is genuinely fine. It works best read as a record of the displacement rather than as a preserved village. A ferry crosses the lake to the complex, a cable car runs up nearby Bibongsan, and the region markets itself around the water.

What you actually see

• The rebuilt buildings - offices, houses and a school moved uphill.
• Hanbyeongnu pavilion - the view over the flooded valley.
• The salvaged stones - markers and tombstones collected together.
• The museum - the record of what the dam covered.

When to go

April to June and October. The lake mist in the early morning is the photographers' hour. Winter is cold and exposed.

Honest expectations

This is a relocation, not a village in place - the assembly is artificial and some visitors find it flat. Ticketed. The ferry runs to a schedule and is weather-dependent.

Nearby

Uirimji is at Jecheon; Danyang is upriver and Chungju downstream.