Hanyangdoseong Naksan Walk: Seoul's Best Sunset Section

The Wall Appears Out of Nowhere

I dropped a group of four off at Hyehwa Station Exit 2 one Tuesday evening around five o'clock. They were skeptical — 'isn't this just a city walk?' one of them said through the car window. I told them to text me when they reached the top of Naksan and looked back toward Inwangsan. They texted forty minutes later. One word: 'Wow.'

That reaction is consistent. The Naksan section of the Hanyangdoseong — Seoul's old city wall, originally built in 1396 under King Taejo — delivers a quality of light and cityscape in the late afternoon that the more famous Inwangsan and Bugaksan sections simply cannot match. The wall here crests a low ridge at just over a hundred metres elevation, and because the surrounding neighbourhood of Ihwa-dong sits below on both flanks, the views open up fast and hit hard.

For foreign visitors who want something genuinely historic and visually spectacular without a full mountain day, this is the section I recommend first. The initial climb to the top takes approximately forty minutes, and the full ridge walk runs two to two-and-a-half hours at a relaxed pace. The footing is almost entirely paved or well-cut stone, and the finishing point drops you straight into Dongdaemun or the Naksan Park café strip — both of which are good reasons to slow down after the walk.

Getting Up There — and Why Timing Is Everything

The standard approach from Hyehwa Station (Line 4) takes you up through the Ihwa Mural Village. Exit 2, then walk straight along Daehangno and turn left at the first main alley signposted for Naksan Park. The ascent through the mural lane is genuinely steep for about ten minutes — short enough that nobody complains, long enough that you feel the altitude when the wall suddenly appears ahead of you.

You reach the wall proper at the Naksan Park summit area, where there is a small pavilion and the first clear views toward Namsan Tower to the south and the Bugak ridge to the north. This is also where the reconstructed wall section begins — pale granite blocks laid in the Joseon style, contrasting with the rougher, darker original stones that appear at intervals and date back six centuries. The difference in texture tells the whole history without a single information board.

Timing the walk for 5:00–6:00 p.m. in summer, or 4:00–5:00 p.m. in autumn and spring, puts you at the highest point of the ridge during the golden hour. The light falls across the wall from the west and catches the old stone in a way that is genuinely photogenic rather than just 'nice.' I have driven people here in every season, and the autumn version — late October, persimmon trees just turning in the alleys below, the wall glowing amber — is the one I push hardest when the calendar allows.

There is no entrance fee for this section. The wall and Naksan Park are open freely to the public. Restrooms are available at the main park pavilion area and again near the Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) end of the route.

The Walk Itself, Section by Section

From the pavilion, the trail follows the wall northeast along the ridge for roughly 1.2 kilometres before descending toward the Dongdaemun area. The path stays on the outer (eastern) face of the wall for most of this stretch, giving you a continuous view over the Daehangno and Dongdaemun districts below. You can see the curve of the Han River on clear days. On slightly hazy ones, the layered silhouette of apartment towers stacked against the hills behind is its own kind of atmosphere.

About halfway along, the path dips briefly through a residential pocket — one of the quirks of this section is that the wall runs directly through what is now an established neighbourhood. Locals walk dogs along the same flagstones. Elderly residents sit on benches built into old wall alcoves. It does not feel like a tourist attraction. It feels like a Tuesday evening in a city that has simply built its life around a six-hundred-year-old fortification, because that is exactly what it is.

The descent toward the DDP end passes through a final gate structure — Heunginjimun (Dongdaemun Gate) is visible from the lower path — and deposits you at street level near Dongdaemun Station (Lines 1 and 4) or DDP Station (Line 2). Both are straightforward pickup points if you have arranged a driver. I usually tell guests to call when they clear the last gate and I time the pickup to meet them at the DDP forecourt, where there is room to pull in without blocking traffic.

If your group wants to extend the evening, the Gwangjang Market entrance on Jongno 5-ga is a fifteen-minute walk from the gate — bindaetteok (mung bean pancakes) and makgeolli for around 8,000 to 12,000 won per person will round the evening off properly.

A Note on Doing This Without a Car

This particular section is one of the few Hanyangdoseong walks that is genuinely manageable by subway alone — Hyehwa Station gets you to the start, and the Dongdaemun / DDP cluster gets you home. I still get requests to include it as a half-day add-on when clients are already in the car heading between Bukhansan and a Han River stop, and that combination works well. But even on its own, point-to-point on foot and metro, the Naksan section earns its place.

The group who texted me that Tuesday had originally booked a full-day Bukhansan trip. We added Naksan as a forty-minute evening detour on the way back to their hotel. They rated it the highlight of the day. I was not surprised.

Off Map Korea offers private transport to trail access points across Seoul and Gyeonggi. Details at offmapkorea.com.