Bulguksa Temple
UNESCO World Heritage Site: Seokguram Grotto And Bulguksa Temple (1995); The Dabotap And Seokgatap Pagodas Are National Treasures · Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang
The great temple of the Silla kingdom on the lower slopes of Tohamsan, about 16 km south-east of central Gyeongju, paired with the Seokguram grotto on the ridge above as one UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1995. Tradition dates a first small temple to 528, but what survives was rebuilt on a grand scale from about 751 under the minister Kim Dae-seong, who is said to have raised Bulguksa for the parents of his present life and Seokguram for the parents of his past one. Its wooden halls burned in the Japanese invasions of the 1590s and were rebuilt in stages, with a major restoration in the early 1970s, but the stonework is Silla original: the great terraces, the Cheongungyo and Baegungyo bridge-stairways, and the two pagodas in front of Daeungjeon hall, the ornate Dabotap and the austere Seokgatap, in which one of the oldest woodblock prints in the world was found. Up the mountain road, a granite Buddha sits in an artificial domed cave facing the East Sea, seen through glass and among the finest Buddhist sculptures in Asia.
385 Bulguk-ro, Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang, 38127, South Korea
NO OPENING TIME HERE WAS CHECKED. The typical pattern: Bulguksa opens every day from about 7 am in summer or 7:30 am in winter to about 5:30 to 6 pm, with last entry about 30 minutes to an hour before the gates shut; Seokguram opens from about 6:30 or 7 am to about 5 to 6 pm by season, earlier on New Year's Day for the sunrise. There is no regular closing day. Bus 12 to Seokguram runs roughly hourly from morning to late afternoon. Traps: the last bus 12 leaving in the late afternoon; arriving after 10 am in May or October with the school groups; full car parks and traffic on autumn weekends; hazy mornings that hide the sunrise; halls closed during services; a peak-day Buddha's Birthday crowd.