Most first-time visitors to Kyoto never make it to Koryu-ji, which is a little strange, because by most accounts it’s the oldest temple in the city — older than Kiyomizu-dera, older than Kinkaku-ji, older than Kyoto itself if you count from its founding in 603. It sits in the quiet Uzumasa district on the western…
South of Kyoto in Uji, a town better known for green tea and Byodo-in, there’s a temple that doesn’t look like it belongs in Japan at all. Manpuku-ji was built by a Chinese monk who never went home, using Ming dynasty architecture and rituals that still set it apart from every other major temple in…
Most of the villas and gardens covered on this site let you walk in, buy a ticket, and wander at your own pace. Katsura Imperial Villa doesn’t work that way. It’s still owned by the Imperial Household Agency, entry is by guided tour only, and getting a spot takes some paperwork in advance — or…
At the foot of Mount Hiei, well north of the temples most visitors spend their time in, there’s a garden built for an emperor who had just given up the throne. Shugakuin Imperial Villa is still owned and managed by the Imperial Household Agency, and getting inside takes more planning than almost anywhere else in…
Northwest of Nijo Castle and just south of Ninna-ji, there’s a walled complex so large that the streets around it feel like their own neighborhood. Myoshin-ji is the head temple of its own branch of Rinzai Zen Buddhism, and its grounds hold somewhere around 40 to 50 sub-temples behind their own gates and hedges, most…
Kyoto’s temples don’t just look good in daylight. Starting in late October and running through mid-December, a rotating handful of the city’s best-known maple gardens stay open after dark, lit with lanterns, projections, or colored LEDs so visitors can see the autumn foliage in an entirely different register. This is separate from ordinary daytime koyo…
South of central Kyoto, past the vermillion torii tunnels of Fushimi Inari and the sake breweries lining the Horikawa canal, a pair of castle turrets rises above a quiet, forested hill. This is Fushimi Momoyama Castle — and it’s worth saying upfront that what you’re looking at isn’t a genuine historic building. It’s a concrete…
October in Kyoto sits in a comfortable gap between summer’s humidity and November’s wall-to-wall foliage crowds. Temperatures finally settle into something pleasant, the festival calendar is as busy as any month of the year, and — for most of the month, in most years — the maples are still green, so you get the historic…
Turn off the Philosopher’s Path just north of Ginkaku-ji and follow the narrow lane past a handful of guesthouses, and you’ll reach a flight of stone steps leading up to a gate roofed entirely in moss. That’s Honen-in, one of the quieter stops in northern Higashiyama, and the kind of place that rewards the small…
The Eizan Railway is easy to miss if you are not looking for it: a small two-car train that leaves from a modest platform tucked behind Demachiyanagi Station, rather than a stop on any of the subway lines most visitors default to. It is also one of the more efficient ways to string together a…