Past the last souvenir stand on the Adashino side of Arashiyama’s bamboo path, the crowds thin out and the road narrows into something closer to a country lane than a sightseeing route. That is where Gio-ji sits: a small, thatched hermitage wrapped in a moss garden that most first-time visitors to Kyoto never reach, mostly…
Tucked into the hills just past Tofuku-ji, Sennyu-ji rarely makes anyone’s first-day Kyoto itinerary, which is a little strange given what it actually is: the closest thing Japan has to a single temple dedicated to its emperors. From the Kamakura period on, generations of the imperial family were buried on these grounds, and the temple…
Ask a Kyoto local about “Kurodani” and they will usually point you up a hillside a few minutes’ walk from Shinnyodo and the northern stretch of the Philosopher’s Path, rather than toward anything on a typical tourist map. That is Konkai Komyo-ji, the formal name for a temple most people in the neighborhood just call…
Squeezed between Chion-in’s enormous gate and the slopes leading up toward Gion, Shoren-in is easy to walk past without a second glance from the street. Step through the gate, though, and it’s a different Kyoto: a former imperial monzeki temple with a pond garden by a Muromachi-era master, camphor trees older than most of the…
Most visitors heading toward Ginkaku-ji or the Philosopher’s Path walk right past the turnoff for Shinnyodo without knowing it’s there, and that’s more or less the point of the place. Formally called Shinshogokuraku-ji, “the true temple of paradise,” this Tendai-sect temple in the quiet Jodoji neighborhood of Sakyo-ku has a three-story pagoda, a legendary Buddha…
Kyoto’s famous autumn color gets all the attention, but there’s a shorter, stranger season that comes first: a week or two in mid-to-late September when the rice paddies just outside the city suddenly turn red along their edges. The flower responsible is higanbana, the red spider lily, and while you’ll spot the odd cluster all…
Most visitors who make it to the far end of Sagano stop at Otagi Nenbutsu-ji, catch their breath after the hill up from Arashiyama, and turn back. A ten-minute walk further down the road, past the thatched houses of Saga-Toriimoto, sits a quieter and considerably older temple that most of them never see. Adashino Nenbutsu-ji…
Arashiyama already has the bamboo grove and the monkeys, but the district’s most underrated ride is a small diesel train that never goes anywhere near a station most travelers use. The Sagano Scenic Railway, usually called the Sagano Romantic Train or simply the Torokko, runs open-sided sightseeing carriages along a retired stretch of the old…
Most first-time visitors to Kyoto never make it to Yawata, the city just south of the prefecture where three rivers meet below a wooded mountain. A shrine has stood on top of that mountain, Otokoyama, for more than a thousand years, and it’s one that Japan has historically ranked second in importance only to Ise…
Higashiyama is the district most people picture when they picture Kyoto — wooden temple gates, stone-paved slopes, machiya storefronts selling matcha and pickles, geiko slipping between appointments in Gion at dusk. The good news is that the district’s best-known sights sit close enough together to walk between them in a single day without much backtracking….