City Hall to Deoksugung to the Seoul Museum of Art: A Half-Day Walk That's Free on Wednesdays

Most visitors meet Deoksugung through the window of a tour bus on the way to Gyeongbokgung. It deserves an afternoon of its own, and the blocks around it make one: a free gallery under City Hall, the palace, the road along its stone wall and a free art museum in the old Supreme Court. Everything sits within about ten minutes on foot of City Hall Station, and on a Wednesday the whole walk can cost nothing.

I walked it on Wednesday, October 7, 2026, from City Hall Station at 11:35 to the Seoul Museum of Art just before 1 p.m., with time inside each stop. Hours below are from each operator’s page, checked the same day.

The short version

Go Tuesday to Saturday. Monday closes the palace and both museums; Sunday closes the City Hall gallery.

Seoul City Hall and the Seoul Gallery

The 1926 building that now houses the Seoul Metropolitan Library, and the new City Hall behind it. Photo: Steve OH.

Exit 6 of City Hall Station (Lines 1 and 2) comes up at the crosswalk to Seoul Plaza, facing both City Halls: the 1926 stone one and the glass wave behind it. The old building now houses the Seoul Metropolitan Library and is a registered cultural heritage site. Anyone can walk in and read; you need a membership only to borrow. The main reading rooms are open 9:00 to 21:00 Tuesday to Friday and 9:00 to 18:00 at weekends.

Go down into the new building’s basement. After a renovation it reopened on February 5, 2026, as the Seoul Gallery, the city’s own showcase, on two basement floors. The reason to come is the first hall: a model of all of Seoul at 1:1600. Pick a park or a city project on the touchscreen and its spot on the model lights up. You can find your hotel’s neighborhood on it. A giant pink Haechi, the city’s mascot, was greeting visitors on the way in. The gallery is free, open 9:00 to 19:00 Monday to Thursday, 9:00 to 21:00 on Friday and Saturday, and 9:00 to 18:00 on public holidays. It is closed on Sundays.

Deoksugung

Inside Daehanmun on Wednesday, October 7, 2026. Photo: Steve OH.

Daehanmun, the palace gate, is across the road from the plaza, two minutes from Exit 2 of City Hall Station.

Admission. Foreign adults from 19 to 64 pay ₩1,000; foreign visitors 18 and under or 65 and over enter free with proof of age, as does anyone wearing hanbok. Since August 5, 2026, Deoksugung has been free every Wednesday, not just on the last Wednesday of the month. The banner inside the gate on October 7 read “Free admission today” in English, Chinese and Japanese.

Hours. Entry 9:00 to 20:00; the grounds stay open to 21:00. Closed Mondays. The late hours make it work after dinner as well as before lunch.

Tours. Free English tours leave from Tuesday to Sunday at 10:45 and 13:30 from the palace map about 10 meters inside Daehanmun, and take about 45 minutes. They are for foreign visitors; Koreans can join only with a foreign companion. Seokjojeon, the stone hall that holds the Daehan Empire History Museum, can be seen only on a guided tour. Its Korean sessions are booked online, but the English ones, at 11:50 and 14:50, are signed up for on the spot: a sign by the gate on October 7 put the limit at 20 foreign visitors each, with a waiting list at the museum’s first-floor entrance.

The fountain garden, with the MMCA’s Deoksugung building on the left and Seokjojeon on the right. Photo: Steve OH.

What sets Deoksugung apart is that mix. Junghwajeon, the throne hall, is wood and painted eaves with office towers rising behind it; a short walk away, the fountain garden sits between two stone buildings that would not look out of place in a European capital. You can look into Junghwajeon’s open doors at the throne and its folding screen of the sun, moon and five peaks.

The art museum inside. The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) runs the stone building beside Seokjojeon. Its ticket price depends on the exhibition and is paid on top of the palace ticket. The museum is open 10:00 to 18:00, and to 21:00 on Wednesdays and Saturdays, when entry after 18:00 is free. On a Wednesday evening, the palace and the museum together cost nothing; just get through Daehanmun before 20:00.

For the palace’s history and what each building was for, see our Deoksugung guide.

The stonewall road

Leave by Daehanmun and turn right along the palace wall. The road under the trees, Deoksugung-gil, leads past the wall to the art museum, about five minutes on foot. At lunchtime on a weekday it fills with office workers from the surrounding blocks. Until November 19, 2026, the palace is re-laying the roof tiles on its south wall between Daehanmun and the old Ungyo bridge site, so expect scaffolding along part of the wall.

Seoul Museum of Art, Seosomun

The Seoul Museum of Art’s main building, behind the old Supreme Court facade. Photo: Steve OH.

The arched stone front at the top of the hill was built in 1928 as the Gyeongseong court and later served as Korea’s Supreme Court. When the court moved south of the river in 1995, the city kept the facade, rebuilt the rest and opened it in 2002 as the main building of the Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA).

Admission is free. The museum is open 10:00 to 20:00 Tuesday to Thursday, 10:00 to 21:00 on Fridays, and 10:00 to 19:00 at weekends and on public holidays (18:00 from November to February). Entry ends an hour before closing. It is closed on Mondays unless the Monday is a public holiday.

Two small things at the door. A sign asks you to leave personal bags in the lockers on the basement floor. The museum also lends a “Modeun Gabang” (“bag for all”), a tote of tools for the visit, from a rack by the galleries. The keyring on it is a signal for staff: hang the red one in front if you’d like someone to check in on you, the blue one if you want to see a work up close. The café on the first floor, SeMA Café × Heugyujae, is the place to sit afterward; food and drink aren’t allowed in the museum itself.

To leave, the museum’s directions put the nearest subway entrances at City Hall Station Exit 10 for Line 2, 260 m and about 4 minutes, and Exit 1 for Line 1, 380 m and about 6 minutes. For Line 5, Seodaemun Station Exit 5 and Gwanghwamun Station Exit 6 are both about 900 m, or 13 minutes on foot.

Which order

• Midday, Tuesday to Saturday: City Hall and the Seoul Gallery, Deoksugung through Daehanmun, out along the stonewall road, and the Seoul Museum of Art last. That is the route above.
• Wednesday after work: reverse it. The Seoul Museum of Art takes its last visitors at 19:00 Tuesday to Thursday, so start there, walk the stonewall road down to Daehanmun, enter the palace before 20:00 and finish at the MMCA’s free evening hours. The Seoul Gallery closes at 19:00 Monday to Thursday; if you arrive by 17:00, see it first and go on to the museum by 18:00.
• Friday evening: the Seoul Gallery and the Seoul Museum of Art both stay open to 21:00, and the palace grounds do too.

Steve OH edits Seoulpin. Steve runs Standardpin, a Seoul-based web studio that also builds websites for clinics; that work has no effect on whether or how any clinic appears here. Articles are drafted with AI assistance from the sources listed and reviewed by Steve before publishing. How we work