KYOTO · JAPAN
Vermilion gates, green bamboo, the geisha hour.
The old imperial capital, with more temples, gardens and tea houses than anywhere in Japan and the last living geisha districts at its heart. Reviews of the experiences worth your days here, from the Fushimi Inari gates to the Arashiyama bamboo, Gion to Nara.
The soul of the place
What you really come to Kyoto for.
Temples and shrines fill every Japanese city. The way of tea, the dry Zen garden and the ten thousand gates of Fushimi belong to Kyoto the way they belong nowhere else.
The way of tea
The Tea Ceremony
Chanoyu was raised to an art in Kyoto by Sen no Rikyu, and the great tea schools still keep their houses here. Kneel on the tatami, watch the matcha whisked to a froth, and drink it the way it has been served for four hundred years.
- 1 Kyoto: Tea Ceremony in a Traditional Tea House in Kiyomizu
- 2 Kyoto: Tea Ceremony Ju-An at Jotokuji Temple
- 3 Kyoto: 45-Minute Tea Ceremony Lesson Experience
The dry garden
The Zen Garden
Kyoto’s Zen temples raked gravel and set stone into the most quietly famous gardens in the world, Ryoan-ji above them all. Sit on the veranda, look at fifteen rocks you can never quite see at once, and let the morning go still.
- 1 Kyoto Zen Meditation & Garden Tour at a Zen Temple with Lunch
- 2 Kyoto: Zen Experience in a Hidden Temple
- 3 Kyoto: Tea Ceremony Meditation – Make Matcha with Tea Master
Ten thousand gates
Fushimi Inari
Behind the shrine to the rice god, a path winds up the mountain beneath thousands of vermilion torii, each one donated, set so close they tunnel the daylight. Climb at dawn and long stretches of the gates are yours alone.
- 1 Fushimi Inari Hidden Hiking Tour (Private Option Available)
- 2 Osaka/Kyoto: Arashiyama, Nara & Fushimi Inari Shrine w/Lunch
- 3 Kyoto: Nijo Castle, Kiyomizu & Fushimi Inari Guided Tour
Start here
If you only have one day in Kyoto.
The sights sprawl right across the city and the bus map defeats everyone. This is the single experience more travellers book than any other, the highlights without the logistics.
The classics
Kyoto’s Most Popular Experiences
The Kiyomizu terrace, a Gion geisha walk, the Fushimi gates and a tea ceremony. The days most travellers build a Kyoto trip around.
Where to begin
Where every Kyoto trip begins.
Gion and the geisha, a tea ceremony, the Arashiyama bamboo, the Fushimi gates, a cooking class and the day trip to Nara. The handful of experiences most trips are planned around, and the best of each.
The big question
How to see the geisha.
Kyoto is the last city with working geisha districts, and walking up to a maiko on the street is the wrong way to do it. Three ways to see Gion, depending on how close you want to get.
The Kyoto table
Kaiseki, market food and the sake of Fushimi.
Kyoto’s kitchen runs from the careful courses of kaiseki and the tofu cuisine of the temples to the hundred stalls of Nishiki Market and the lantern-lit counters along Pontocho. Just south, Fushimi has been brewing some of Japan’s softest sake for four centuries.
Read the guide: the best food tours in Kyoto →Arashiyama
Into the green, twenty metres up.
On the western edge of the city the Sagano bamboo rises in a corridor so tall it filters the daylight to a cool green hush. Beyond it: the river gorge and its boats, the monkey mountain, the moss temples and the old villas of Arashiyama.
Arashiyama tours & day trips →All year round
Kyoto turns with the seasons.
The same temple is four different places across the year. Come for the colour you want, then pick the experience that suits it.
By place
Pick a part of the old city.
Gion for the geisha and the teahouses. Arashiyama for the bamboo and the river. Fushimi for the gates and the sake. Nara, an hour south, for the deer and the Great Buddha.
By experience
Or choose the thing you came to do.
A tea ceremony for the ritual. A cooking class to use your hands. A kimono and a camera, a sake tasting, a samurai lesson, or a night walk through the lanes.
Plan it
Three days, done right.
Never been? A first-timer’s long weekend that hits the temples, the bamboo and the gates without a wasted hour.
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