We had booked this trip to visit Italian Village and Petite France, along with Nami Island and Gangchon Rail Bike. If I was given the choice again, I probably would not have added these two places as part of our day trip. It felt a bit too too rushed and it was an extremely hot summer’s day.
It took us over an hour to travel to Italian Village and Petite France by minibus. They are located in Gapyeong County next to Cheongpyeong Lake. When we arrived at the location, we were at the entrances to both Italian Village and Petite France. Our guide then gave us all one and a half hours to explore both areas.
The Italian Village is set above Petite France so it made sense to walk around that first. This Italian town called ‘Pinocchio and da Vinci’ was opened on 22nd May 2021 and is a theme park based on the operational experience of Petite France over the past 13 years.
The theme around this place is based on Pinocchio, a fairy tale character loved by people around the world, and Leonardo da Vinci, a genius born during the Renaissance. The place mirrors a small Italian town with narrow alleys, tall buildings, medieval roofs and stone-paved roads. Not forgetting the unmissable Pinocchio figurine at the front of this town.
It was an extremely hot day when we went and we arrived at 3pm. This town is built on a very steep hill. I struggled to climb up in this heat. The place is picturesque for photo shooting, but being at the top of the hill with the scorching sun put me off from taking too many photos.
At the da Vinci exhibition, there was no air conditioning, hence it was quite warm inside the building. All the explanations and languages of the exhibitions were in Korean so we were not able to decipher it. We could have used Google Translate but we were short on time and quite hot and bothered.
We then went down to the Petite France, which is a French cultural village set, designed around the theme concept, “flowers, stars, and the Little Prince,”. This was opened in July 2008. Many K-dramas have been filmed there, like Secret Garden in 2010 and My Love From The Star in 2013.
Most of the exhibition rooms have no air-con, hence it was very hot. The only place that had fans and air con was the Maison d’Orgel where they do the music box demonstration. They have a wide range of music boxes made from hundreds of years ago to the most recent music boxes. They will take you on a very special musical journey where you can appreciate the music box’s principles and history. We all enjoyed the explanations.
Both locations were very picturesque, but with the hot summer, I was too uncomfortable to enjoy these two places or take many photos. There are many Instagrammable hotspots – if you are after beautiful backgrounds, then it is worth spending more time there.
After that, we made our way back to Seoul, which took us almost 3 hours due to heavy traffic. We all alighted at the Hongdae area and had a nice meal and shopped around before we headed back to our hotel. Hongdae is one of the popular spots for the young, fashionable or musical. You can often see many singing or dancing performances, hoping for their big break in the entertainment industry.
