Two days in Mokpo, where the railway runs out of track at the sea

The KTX runs out of track at Mokpo (목포). The line that began in Seoul simply stops here, at a terminus a few blocks from the water, where the platform smells of diesel and, faintly, of drying fish. Step out of the station and the town is already legible: a low grid of shopfronts, a green hill closing off the far end, and beyond it the light of a harbour that has always faced the islands rather than the capital.

The mountain that ends at the sea

Yudalsan (유달산) is only 228 metres, a hill you can climb in a T-shirt, but it does the work of a mountain. The trail up from Nojeokbong (노적봉) passes a sculpture park and a pavilion at Nakjo-dae (낙조대), the sunset lookout, where the whole archipelago spreads out grey-blue toward the horizon. Locals come at dusk, in slippers, carrying nothing. On a clear evening you can pick out the piers of the Mokpo Grand Bridge (목포대교) and the low green back of Gohado, the island offshore.

From the mountain's flank runs the Mokpo Marine Cable Car (목포해상케이블카), which at about 3.2 kilometres is among the longest in the country. A round trip in a standard cabin runs around 27,000 won; the crystal-floor cabins, glass underfoot, cost closer to 39,000. It leaves from the North Port base and climbs over Yudalsan's ridge before dropping out across open water. The last cars up leave in the early evening, later in summer, and the crossing back after dark is the better one, when the bridge lights come on beneath your feet.

An island reached by cable

Gohado (고하도) sits at the far end of the cable, a low island that once held some of Korea's first cotton fields and, four centuries ago, a naval camp. The modern draw is a wooden coastal path, the dulle-gil, that runs along the cliffs at the waterline, and an observation tower built as a stack of angled panels meant to echo the hull plates of a turtle ship. It is a twenty-minute walk from the upper cable station down to the shore deck. Bring water; there is one small kiosk and little shade.

The view back is the point. From the deck you look across the strait at Mokpo climbing its hill, the bridge arcing over the channel, and the fishing boats working the shallows. Few day-trippers bother to walk the full loop, so past the first bend you often have the boardwalk to yourself.

Rocks in hats, and a walk over the water

On the southern shore, a short bus or taxi ride from the centre, stand the Gatbawi (갓바위) rocks: two weathered columns of stone that look, unmistakably, like two figures wearing the tall horsehair hat, the gat (갓), that scholars once wore. A floating steel boardwalk, the haesang bohonggyo, lets you walk out over the sea to within arm's reach of them, the water moving green below the grating. There is no ticket; the path is open through the day and lit after dark.

The rocks sit beside a cluster worth an hour: the Natural History Museum and the ceramics livingware museum share a plaza here, and the whole strip faces west, which makes it another sunset spot without the crowd that gathers on Yudalsan. Come an hour before the light goes.

What Mokpo eats

This is a seafood town, and it is specific about it. The signature is sebal-nakji (세발낙지), a small octopus with thread-thin legs, eaten raw and wrapped whole around a chopstick, or chopped into a fierce muchim with sesame and chilli. In summer the prize is min-eo (민어), the croaker that Jeolla families eat as a restorative in the hottest weeks; a full course of sashimi, swim bladder and hot-pot for two can run past 60,000 won, and it is worth ordering once. Year-round there is hongeo (홍어), fermented skate, served as hongeo-samhap with steamed pork and aged kimchi, its ammonia sting an acquired and defended local pride.

Most of this is eaten near the water, around the North Port raw-fish centre and the lanes off Peace Plaza (평화광장). At the plaza, on warm-season evenings, the Dancing Sea Fountain (춤추는 바다분수) runs shows over the harbour after dark, jets thrown high against the water while families eat shaved ice on the steps.

목포는 서울을 등지고 섬을 바라보며 살아온 항구다.

Getting there, and one thing to get right

Trains reach Mokpo as a terminus: the KTX from Seoul's Yongsan station, or the SRT from Suseo, take just under three hours and cost around 50,000 won one way. The town is compact enough to cross on foot, with short taxi hops to Gatbawi and the port. Mokpo is also the mainland gateway to the Sinan islands, and a bus over the bridges reaches Jeungdo (증도), the slow-city island of salt flats, in about an hour. The common mistake is to treat Mokpo as a half-day stop on the way to the Jeju ferry. Give it the overnight. And time the food to the calendar: min-eo belongs to summer, so if you come in the cold months, come for the skate and the octopus instead, and don't go looking for a fish that isn't in the tanks.