Seoul

The changing of the guard at Gwanghwamun happens twice a day, at 10am and 2pm, and the palace closes on Tuesdays. Admission is waived if you turn up in hanbok, which is why the rental shops crowd the street opposite the gate.

The rear garden takes its own timed ticket on top of palace admission, and you go in only with a guide. The loop runs ninety minutes with no way out partway. Same-day tickets often disappear within minutes of the gate opening.

The view everybody photographs — tiled roofs dropping away toward the city — is one short stretch of Bukchon-ro 11-gil. People live on it, so tourists may only walk it between 10am and 5pm; outside those hours there is a fine. Evening plans do not work here.

The inclined elevator from Myeongdong station up to the cable-car platform costs nothing. From there it is either the cable car or one of the Namsan shuttle buses. The plaza under the tower is free. Plenty of people take the view from there and turn back.

The summit is 338 metres, two hours up and down, but bare granite and stairs almost from the trailhead with next to no shade. The ridge was shut for decades to guard the presidential compound and opened in 2018 — keep the wall on your left.

Open since 1905 and still a fabric market on the upper floor, with the food alley grinding away beneath it until eleven at night. At any stall that has not posted its prices, ask before you sit down.

Around a hundred small urban hanok, run up in the 1930s as ordinary housing, are now split between cafés and kitchens. Too narrow for two umbrellas to pass, the lanes start right outside exit 4 at Jongno 3-ga.

Part of the floor on the 118th storey is glass, with Jamsil directly beneath your shoes, in an observatory that starts on the 117th floor of a 555-metre, 123-storey tower.

The permanent galleries charge nothing. The Room of Quiet Contemplation, opened in 2021, is a single dark hall holding two gilt-bronze pensive bodhisattvas and nothing else. An underground passage from Ichon station exit 2 gets you in without going outdoors.

Water arcs off the flank of Banpo Bridge from April to October, twenty minutes a run. Down on the grass, fried chicken gets delivered to your mat while the machine outside the convenience store boils ramyeon.

A neoclassical stone hall, Seokjojeon, stands beside the wooden pavilions. Shut on Mondays, the palace stays open until 9pm, and plenty of office workers drop in on the way home. The stone-wall lane by Daehanmun lies outside the walls and needs no ticket.

Shrine to the kings and queens of Joseon, World Heritage since 1995. On weekdays you enter only with a guide at a set slot; Saturday is the day to wander alone. Closed Tuesdays. The terrace before the main hall is so vast it looks empty even when crowded.

A glasshouse of 1909 stands behind the pond at the palace's north end, iron and glass, the latest thing then and unlike anything else inside the walls. Closed Mondays. Only a wall divides it from the Changdeokgung garden, so many people do both.

Designed by Zaha Hadid and opened in 2014, a silver shell curving on without a single corner. It stands on the old Dongdaemun Stadium site, and a city-wall water gate dug up during building is kept in the park. The wholesale malls opposite stay lit overnight.

The road and elevated highway covering it were torn out and the stream ran again in 2005. The shell sculpture at Cheonggye Plaza, where it starts, is by Claes Oldenburg. The path runs a storey below the street, so traffic sounds distant even in summer.

From Hyehwa station the old city wall climbs along the park ridge. In Ihwa village below, residents tired of tourist noise painted over the famous fish mural on the steps themselves in 2016. The path outside the wall leads downhill to Dongdaemun on foot.

A district of shoe factories and warehouses turned into cafés and shops with the red brick kept. Brand pop-ups open nearly every weekend, so the same lane changes each visit. A few shoemakers still hammer away under the elevated tracks by Seongsu station.

When the railway went underground, the strip of land it left became a linear park. On the Yeonnam-dong stretch people spread picnic mats across the lawn, and so locals call it Yeontral Park. It starts right outside exit 3 of Hongik University station.

At 836 metres Baegundae is the highest point in Seoul, and the subway and a bus reach the trailhead. The last granite stretch is climbed hand over hand on steel cables, so gloves help. On weekend mornings people queue to photograph the summit marker.

Next to Samgakji station in Yongsan, with permanent galleries that charge nothing; closed on Mondays. The outdoor yard is lined with real fighter jets, tanks and even a naval vessel, and most children spend longer out there than inside.

A prison opened in 1908 where independence activists were held under Japanese rule. The red-brick cell blocks and execution house remain; closed on Mondays. It faces exit 5 of Dongnimmun station, so the Independence Gate opposite comes with the visit.

Gothic, in red brick, completed in 1898, it is the principal cathedral of Korean Catholicism. Outside Mass times you may go into the nave and sit quietly. Set up on a rise, it keeps the din of the Myeongdong shopping streets out of its courtyard.

A hill park made by capping Nanjido, the old city landfill, with soil. In October the silver grass on top turns pale and its festival is held. The Sky Stairs up number 291 and leave you breathless, though a small electric shuttle does the climb for you.

A huge traditional market beside Sungnyemun gate, each lane selling something else: children's clothes, kitchenware, ginseng, imported food. Many shops shut on Sundays. In the braised-hairtail alley the pot comes to your table still on its burner.