Pohang

If the peninsula is a tiger, this cape is its tail. The giant bronze Hand of Harmony rising from the sea was put up in 1999 for the new millennium, with its partner hand facing it on land. Before dawn on 1 January, sunrise crowds jam the roads for hours.

Korea's only lighthouse museum, beside Homigot, showing old lamp mechanisms and a keeper's household. The Homigot lighthouse in its grounds is an octagonal tower of 1908, built of brick with no steel reinforcement. You can walk over to the sunrise plaza.

A steel stairway twisted like a roller-coaster track, built in 2021 on the hill in Hwanho Park. You walk its rails up and down, and towards the summit the drop below shows clearly enough to shake the knees. Rain or strong wind closes it.

A beach right by downtown, named for Yeongildae, a pavilion reached by a bridge out over the sea. After sunset the steelworks across the bay light up, so the view from the sand becomes an industrial night scene. Raw fish restaurants and cafes line the back.

Wooden houses where Japanese fishermen lived in the 1920s survive along one lane. Visitor numbers jumped after the 2019 drama When the Camellia Blooms was filmed here. Climb the stone stairs midway along for a view over Guryongpo harbour.

The largest traditional market on the east coast, its seafood lanes piled with snow crab, octopus or gwamegi as the season turns. Pick your fish and a market restaurant will plate it. It is liveliest from dawn into the morning, when traders do their buying.

A trail up the valley behind Bogyeongsa that strings together 12 waterfalls. The biggest, Yeonsan Falls, faces a tall cliff called Haksodae, and a suspension bridge crosses the gorge. The path is mostly gentle, fine in trainers.

Its name recalls a tale of the monks Wonhyo and Hyegong, who ate fish and brought them back to life; each claimed the one that swam upstream as my fish. The temple sits by a reservoir, with a suspension bridge to the lakeside trail.

A viewing platform jutting out to sea from a coastal rock, shaped like a ship's anchor. Its tip is said to point towards Dokdo. The rocks around are rugged, and when the water is clear you can look straight down to the seabed.

A walking route round Homigot along the east coast and Yeongil Bay, with many stretches of timber deck over rocky shore. It passes a park on the Silla legend of Yeono and Seo, a couple carried to Japan on a rock. Walkers pick a section.

Opened in 2014, a 1.3km canal that reopened the blocked waterway between the Hyeongsan River and Dongbin inner harbour. Cruise boats run through it and loop past the harbour toward Yeongil Bay. Footpaths line each side, and every bridge is lit after sunset.

A history museum, showroom and park POSCO opened by its steelworks in 2021; 1538 is the Celsius melting point of iron. Admission costs nothing and anyone may stroll the waterside park, but the showroom and bus tours inside the works need booking online ahead.

A long greenway planted on the old Donghae Nambu line that once cut through the city. In 2017 gas rising from a newly dug borehole caught fire and became the Fire Garden attraction; the flame went out in September 2024. Separate lanes serve bikes and walkers.

A town wall on a seaside hill, first built of earth under Goryeo and rebuilt in stone under King Sejong. Janggi was a Joseon exile post where Song Si-yeol and Jeong Yak-yong were banished, and an exile culture village lies below. It overlooks the East Sea.