The Han River Parks

The Han is wide enough to read as a lake where it cuts through Seoul, and both banks are given over to a chain of public parks running for tens of kilometres. Cycle paths follow the water almost without interruption, past sports pitches, outdoor pools that open in summer, ferry piers and long stretches of grass where the city sits out in the evening with delivery food and convenience-store noodles. Each park has its own character: Yeouido for cherry blossom and the autumn fireworks, Banpo for the bridge fountain that plays on summer evenings, Ttukseom for water sports, Nanji for camping. Bicycles can be hired at most of them and returned somewhere else along the bank.

What you actually see

• The cycle paths - the continuous riverside routes along both banks.
• Banpo bridge fountain - the water and light display from the bridge on summer evenings.
• Yeouido in April - the cherry blossom avenue behind the north bank park.
• Evening picnics - the grass banks filling with people, mats and delivery food after dark.

When to go

Late spring and early autumn evenings are the sweet spot, warm enough to sit out and cool enough to cycle. Blossom lands in early April and draws enormous crowds to Yeouido for about a week. Midsummer is humid and the monsoon closes low-lying paths after heavy rain. Winter is bleak and windy along the open bank.

Honest expectations

It is a city park, not scenery: expressways run along both banks and the traffic noise is constant in places. The parks are strung out and the gaps between them are long, so pick one rather than trying to walk between them. Flooding after summer rain closes sections without warning. Blossom week at Yeouido is shoulder-to-shoulder.

Nearby

Yeouido's towers, the Banpo and Ttukseom districts and the Seoul Forest are all on or beside the river.