Cheongdo | Provence Photo Land & Wine Tunnel

After a day of eating, hiking, and strange art coffee shops, we jumped in the car and hit up two of Cheongdo’s most popular tourist attractions: Provence Photo Land and the Cheongdo wine tunnel.

I don’t think Sly and I quite knew what we were getting into when we agreed to go to Provence Photo Land, and in fact, I think we just went along with the suggestion because it seemed like the thing to do while in Cheongdo. In my head, I envisioned a small, Asian-style, theme park with maybe a re-created town center reminiscent of the village in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast; shops that sold ice cream, waffle desserts, churros, and maybe even Japanese-style sweet crepes; and possibly a Petite Prince statue scattered here and there.

Instead we got lights. Lots and lots of lights.

(Sorry for the poor quality of these photos. I didn’t feel like lugging around my real camera, and my phone takes streaky photos when it’s low on batteries.)

Koreans are kind of obsessed with Christmas lights and photo zones. Combine them together and you have yourself a Korean theme park, or in this case, a “Provencal” photo land. Beyond the hodgepodge assortment of re-created story book scenes and bootleg Disney characters, nothing about this theme park evoked even a remote feeling of being in the South of France. I think a more appropriate name would be Cheongdo Christmas Light Town.

Despite the slight disconnect between its name and reality, it was still a fun place to walk off our massive mid-day meal. Some people were completely into the photo taking aspect (tripods and everything), and many of the more popular photo zones had lines of people waiting their turn. We definitely were not those people. Something about the ridiculousness of the place made us act even goofier than normal.

lights, anyone?

what the heck is going on between our lips?

someone didn’t get the memo

do kids even know what smurfs are these days?

the Santa of your nightmares

this hand gesture means “love” or “I love you” in Korea

so awesome

a small Korean street food stand was one of the only places I noticed that sold food

Maybe if we came back during the Christmas season – or if we were like a billion years younger — we would have appreciated Provence Land a little bit more. I can imagine that this would be an awesome place to take younger kids, especially during the holidays. As for old people like us, we blew through it in like 45 minutes and then looked at one another and said, “now where’s the wine tunnel thing again?” After a frantic search on our phones, we discovered that the wine tunnel was only about 15 minutes away, and still open for at least another hour.

We booked it to the wine tunnel. After a few wrong turns and lots of bad signage, we drove past what looked to be a road block, and parked right next to the wine tunnel’s entrance.

The Cheongdo wine tunnel is actually an old train tunnel that was re-purposed as a wine cellar. It’s constant 13-15 degree Celsius temperature makes it the perfect place for fermenting and storing wine, in particular, Persimmon wine, which is a specialty of this region. Apparently there are a bunch of activities that tourists can partake in, like wine tasting, wine making, persimmon picking, and something called a “dream experience.”  Unfortunately, we didn’t get to do any of those things. Even though we arrived 45 minutes before closing, and even though there were people still at the vending booths and wine counters, not a single person (sans a friendly kitten) greeted us or showed any interest in pouring wine, offering samples, or selling anything at all. Instead, we walked, ghost-like through the mysterious tunnels, which Sly and I determined would be the most amazing place ever for an Oktoberfest.

Even more things wrapped in Christmas lights

Dear Korea/Cheongdo tourism bureau: 1. google Oktoberfest. 2. hold one here the entire month of October 3. Make a limited edition, seasonal persimmon ale to sell at said Oktoberfest. 4. Serve with platters of grilled German-style sausage, which Koreans already love, and is easily found in Korea 5. Profit. 

I sort of think we got it all wrong — we should have STARTED with the wine tunnel, and then, after getting reasonable inebriated (except for the designated driver of course), we should have THEN visited Provence town. Maybe we should have even snuck in a few bottles of alcoholic beverage into the theme park as well. Something tells me that Provence Photo Land would have been a little more entertaining a whole lot more fun with the help of Cheongdo’s persimmon wine.

DETAILS

Cheongdo Provence Photo Land | COST: ~$8/ adults, ~$5 children, less on weekdays (I think) | GOOD FOR: Younger kids, families who want to look at Christmas lights, couples/people who enjoy taking millions of selfies | DESCRIPTION: Christmas light-centric theme park with a loosely inspired storybook (I guess this is where the Provence part comes in) theme. There’s a section devoted entirely to Christmas stuff, if that’s your sort of thing. | VERDICT: I think you would need to have kids to really appreciate this place, otherwise, light tunnels and photo zones can be found pretty much in every major town in Korea. Maybe it’s a different experience during daylight hours?

Cheongdo Wine Tunnel | COST: Free to enter. Tastings, wine making, persimmon picking, etc. extra. | DESCRIPTION: Old brick and stone railroad tunnel turned wine cellar. It’s dark and mysterious vibe totally reminds me of a fortress prison or European catacomb. Several booths set up near the entrance offer wine samples and various unrelated health products, the middle section has a bunch of seating, and the back section has what looked to be an art gallery of some sort. There’s parking right outside the wine tunnel entrance, but it looked like this part filled up rather quickly with overflow parking located a pretty good walking distance away from the tunnel. | VERDICT: Even though we didn’t get to taste anything, we thought the tunnel was interesting/cool/close enough that we would definitely return, except next time we’ll make sure to go more than an hour before closing time…