Heritage walk · Backstreet lanes
The domestic old town — not the palaces but the lanes between them: three princes' compounds turned shophouse quarters, two of the most beautiful small royal temples, and the street of Brahmin rites. Short, flat, and best walked hungry.
The line is a real street-following walking route (OSRM foot profile, © OpenStreetMap contributors) — 3.0 km, about 40 minutes at walking pace. Follow the numbers.
The 21-metre teak frame of the Brahmin swinging ceremony, raised 1784 and last swung 1935 — men once rode it 25 metres up to snatch a bag of silver with their teeth.
Gazetted 1988 · 38 years ago
Three reigns in the building; the 8-metre Phra Si Sakyamuni was floated whole down from Sukhothai in 1808. The viharn's murals are the deepest in Bangkok.
Gazetted 1949 · 77 years ago310 m from stop 1 · 4 min walk
The working Brahmin temple of the court since 1784 — the priests here still perform the royal ceremonies, in Sanskrit, as their families have for forty generations.
Gazetted 2005 · 21 years ago363 m from stop 2 · 5 min walk
The monk-supply street: an unbroken register-listed run of 1900s shophouses selling robes, alms bowls and Buddha images at every scale up to building-height.
550 m from stop 3 · 7 min walk
All that stands of Prince Sanphasat's palace — a stucco arch mid-lane, register monument fad-25, a stage set that outlived its theatre.
Gazetted 1983 · 43 years ago368 m from stop 4 · 5 min walk
The palace forecourt turned town square, ringed by 1900s shophouses and third-generation eateries — the old town's gentlest room.
260 m from stop 5 · 3 min walk
Rama V's temple of 1869: Thai outside, Gothic inside, mother-of-pearl doors — and the royal cemetery behind, a garden of miniature European chapels for the King's family.
Gazetted 1949 · 77 years ago493 m from stop 6 · 7 min walk
Rama IV's tiny grey-marble royal temple of 1864, built for the Thammayut order he founded — the most complete small temple of its century, murals of the 1868 eclipse included.
Gazetted 1949 · 77 years ago675 m from stop 7 · 9 min walk