Gyeongju was the capital of the Silla kingdom for nearly a thousand years, and it is often called a museum without walls, because the tombs, temple sites and palace ruins lie scattered through a modern provincial city. Hwangnyongsa was once the greatest temple in the kingdom, begun in 553, and its nine-storey wooden pagoda, built in the seventh century after the monk Jajang came back from China, was one of the tallest wooden buildings in East Asia. The temple was burned down when the Mongols invaded in 1238, and what is left is a wide field of foundation stones, where the outline of the great hall and the pagoda base can still be made out.
The belt around it, a historic area on the eastern side of the city, includes the royal palace site at Wolseong and the remains of other temples. Nearby, the temple of Bunhwangsa still has a pagoda made of brick-like stone from the seventh century. Silla was a sophisticated state that built observatories, gilded crowns, and elaborate tombs, and the UNESCO recognised the Gyeongju Historic Areas in 2000.
Riding here is easy and pleasant. Gyeongju is a flat basin ringed by low mountains, with wide boulevards, bicycle lanes and large grassy burial mounds, called tumuli, rising among the buildings. The road along Bomun Lake, to the east, is a gentle route, and the mountain roads toward Toham Mountain and Bulguksa wind through pine forests. Traffic is heavy at weekends and during the spring cherry blossom, when thousands of visitors fill the streets. In winter the basin is cold and dry.
Gyeongju has about a hundred and fifty thousand people, so fuel stations and food are plentiful, and there are many places to try the local Gyeongju bread, a small sweet bun filled with red bean, and ssambap, rice with a spread of leafy vegetables. Visit in the cool season of autumn and spring, and in the evening the lit-up ponds at Wolji, a short ride away, are a beautiful spot to end the day.