Bukhansan National Park

This guide to Bukhansan National Park in Seoul opens on a crowded Sunday, queues backing up for hundreds of meters along the final ropes to Baegundae peak in one of the most visited national parks for its size on earth. It reaches back to 1711, when the Joseon king ordered a fortress built into these granite peaks after decades of foreign invasions, nearly ten kilometers of wall punched through by sixteen gates. It follows the difference between the six grand entrances and the eight unmarked ones, built for moving weapons and the wounded unseen during a siege. Grip the same iron cable the soldiers once used as you climb.