Gwangyang Maehwa Village

Maehwa is the Japanese apricot or plum, the first tree to flower in Korea, and the slopes above the Seomjin at Dosa-ri in Gwangyang are covered in it - orchards planted in terraces up the hillside, mostly by one family operation over decades, with paths threading between the trees and the river below. It flowers around the middle of March, before almost anything else, and the village festival that runs then is treated nationally as the announcement of spring; the hillside goes white and the crowds are substantial. The fruit is the working purpose: the plums are picked in June and go into maesil-cheong, the fermented plum syrup used across Korean cooking and drinking, and thousands of earthenware jars stand in rows on the terraces, which are as photographed as the blossom. Across the river is Hadong in Gyeongnam, and the Seomjin road runs between the two.

What you actually see

• The white slopes - plum blossom across the terraced orchards.
• The jar terraces - rows of earthenware fermenting vessels.
• The Seomjin - the river below the orchard hillside.
• The March festival - stalls, crowds and the start of spring.

When to go

Mid to late March for blossom - the window is about ten days and moves with the winter. June is the harvest if you want the jars without the crowds.

Honest expectations

Festival traffic on the river road is severe and parking is far from the orchards. The bloom window is short and easy to miss by a week. Outside March there is little to see beyond the jars.

Nearby

Hadong and its tea fields are across the river; Suncheon and Yeosu are west.