Two Days in Seoul: the Palace Quarter and the Garden

Day Two, Stop by Stop

A shorter and slower day built around one booked session. About five kilometres on foot plus two metro rides. Walking times are our own estimates between entrances.

1. 1

   09:00

   Changdeokgung Palace

   ₩3,000 palace, ₩5,000 garden

   Buy the palace ticket and the Huwon ticket at separate windows before you cross the courtyard — the garden window is inside, and the session leaves on the minute.

   An hour covers the palace itself: the Geumcheongyo bridge, Injeongjeon's throne courtyard, the blue-tiled roof of Seonjeongjeon, and Nakseonjae's unpainted quarter, which is the corner most people skip and the one worth fifteen minutes. The palace page has the route.

   Tickets → Check Availability

   walk inside the palace min to next

2. 2

   10:30

   Huwon, the Secret Garden

   ₩5,000 (about $3.60), timed entry

   The English session at 10:30 is the one this plan is built on, and it is the reason to book at 10:00 exactly six days ahead. Sixty to ninety minutes, guided, on gravel paths: Buyongji's square pond with its round island, the library pavilion above it, Aeryeonji, and the stream cut for floating wine cups at the far end.

   If the online allocation has gone, the other fifty places go on sale at the palace at 09:00 on the day — which is another reason to be there at opening.

   walk about 10 through the connecting gate min to next

3. 3

   12:15

   Changgyeonggung

   ₩1,000 (about $0.70)

   Through the connecting gate rather than back out to the street. Forty minutes and ₩1,000 buys the quietest palace in the centre: a wooded slope, the Chundangji pond, and the iron-and-glass greenhouse of 1909 at the top, which is the strangest building on any palace ground in Korea.

   It also stays open to 21:00 all year, so if the morning runs long you can come back after dinner instead.

   walk about 15 min to next

4. 4

   13:30

   Ikseon-dong

   ₩15,000–₩25,000 a head

   Fifteen minutes south-west into the hanok alleys — the ones you are allowed to be inside. Lunch here is modern Korean at ₩15,000 to ₩25,000, or a noodle counter for less, in a 1920s courtyard house with the roof beams overhead.

   Unlike Bukchon, this block is commercial and has no visitor curfew, so it works at any hour. What is there.

   walk about 10 min to next

5. 5

   15:00

   Jongmyo Shrine

   ₩1,000 (about $0.70)

   Ten minutes east to the royal ancestral shrine, and the least decorated space in Seoul: one unpainted hall a hundred metres long above a rough stone courtyard.

   On weekdays it runs timed language sessions — English at 10:00, 12:00, 14:00 and 16:00 — so aim for the 16:00 if your morning has run over. On Saturdays and Sundays you can walk it freely without a session. Closed Tuesdays, like Gyeongbokgung.

   walk metro, about 20 min to next

6. 6

   17:30

   Han River park, or Hongdae

   Free; dinner ₩8,000–₩15,000

   Two ways to end. The river: twenty minutes on the metro to Yeouido or Ttukseom, a mat on the grass, fried chicken delivered to a park zone, and the towers lighting up across the water. Free, and what Seoul actually does with an evening.

   Or Hongdae: buskers on the playground street from about seven, dinner at ₩8,000 to ₩15,000, and bars that outlast the metro. Both are twenty-five minutes from the palace quarter and neither needs booking.