Six in Jongno, and the Evening Each One Opens

1. National Palace Museum of Korea — inside Gyeongbokgung, south-west corner. Royal seals, protocol records, palanquins, the water clock.
2. National Folk Museum of Korea — against Gyeongbokgung's north-east side. Ordinary households, not the court.
3. MMCA Seoul — Samcheong-ro, east of the palace. Art being made now.
4. National Museum of Korean Contemporary History — across from Gwanghwamun Square. Korea since 1876.
5. Seoul Museum of History — beside Gyeonghuigung. How Hanyang became Seoul.
6. Jogyesa Temple — near Jonggak Station. The Jogye Order's head temple, in the middle of the city.

The first five are museums and a gallery. The sixth is a different kind of thing: Jogyesa is a working temple with daily services, not a visitor attraction, and it is not something whose timetable can be set beside the others.

Five of the six run an extended evening, and the days scatter rather than line up.

• Wednesday — MMCA Seoul (to 21:00), the National Museum of Korean Contemporary History (to 21:00), and the National Folk Museum of Korea (to 20:00, March to October only).
• Friday — the Seoul Museum of History (to 21:00). Nothing else on this list opens late on a Friday.
• Saturday — the National Palace Museum of Korea, MMCA Seoul and the National Museum of Korean Contemporary History, all to 21:00.

So only MMCA Seoul and the contemporary-history museum have two evenings each. The other three have one apiece.

The catch is the Folk Museum. Its Wednesday evening runs from March to October and does not exist from November to February. In winter it not only loses the evening but also finishes an hour earlier during the day, so a winter afternoon spent on Gyeongbokgung first leaves too little for it.

By weekday alone Wednesday and Saturday look similar. One day a month they are not.

The National Palace Museum of Korea runs to 21:00 on the last Wednesday of each month as well as on Saturdays. On that one day it joins the three that already open late on Wednesdays, which puts four of the six open in the evening.

The same day, MMCA Seoul is free for the whole day — not only for the late window, as on other Wednesdays.

If the itinerary has any give in it, the last Wednesday of the month is the cheapest day to spend on these six.

The National Palace Museum of Korea, the National Folk Museum of Korea, the National Museum of Korean Contemporary History and the Seoul Museum of History are all free. The Palace Museum states its free admission stands until it announces otherwise.

MMCA Seoul is the only priced entry, and it has no fixed price. Each exhibition is priced on its own, so a single "admission to MMCA Seoul" figure does not exist. To know the cost in advance you have to look up what is showing that day.

The free windows, though, are fixed:

• Wednesday and Saturday, 18:00 to 21:00 — the late opening, free.
• The last Wednesday of each month — free all day.

So the only entry here that costs anything costs nothing if you go in the evening.

Jogyesa publishes no admission price. Publishing nothing is not the same as being free, so the honest reading is that the price is simply unknown.

The closing days differ too.

The Seoul Museum of History is the only one that closes every Monday — and that is where itineraries usually break, because Monday is when several of Seoul's palaces are open. "See a palace, then get the city's context at the Seoul Museum of History" does not work on a Monday.

The National Palace Museum of Korea closes on the last Monday of the month only. On most Mondays it is open.

The National Folk Museum of Korea, MMCA Seoul and the National Museum of Korean Contemporary History have no weekly closing day; they close on 1 January and on the days of Seollal and Chuseok.