Jeonju Hanok Village is the beating heart of the old city — a dense quarter of nearly 800 traditional tile-roofed houses built in the curved, eave-heavy style of Joseon-era Korea. It is genuinely inhabited rather than a museum piece: families live here, restaurants operate out of century-old buildings, and the rhythm of the neighbourhood is unhurried and local.
Walk the central lane between Gyeonggijeon Shrine and the Jeondong Cathedral and you pass everything from tiny pottery studios to makgeolli bars set inside restored wooden interiors. The best time to be here is early morning, before the day-trippers arrive from Seoul and Busan, when the stone alleys are quiet and the smell of cooking fires drifts out of breakfast stalls. Evening has its own appeal: paper lanterns come on, and the village takes on a warm amber glow that the midday crowds never quite see.
Staying overnight in a hanok guesthouse is strongly recommended — sleeping on the heated floor (ondol) of a century-old house, with a courtyard to yourself, is an experience that no standard hotel can match.