Why go
Kyoto rewards early risers more than any city we know. The Arashiyama bamboo grove at eight in the morning is silent and green and completely yours. Fushimi Inari before the coaches arrive is ten thousand vermilion gates and your own footsteps. By eleven both are a queue. In between, the city is small enough to walk, and the good part is not the famous temples but the lanes between them, wooden houses, a shop selling one kind of pickle for four hundred years, an old woman sweeping a step. Cherry blossom lands late March into April, autumn colour peaks in November, and both are worth booking months ahead.
Good to know
- Fly into Osaka (KIX), then 75 minutes by train
- Five nights, with a day trip to Nara for the deer
- Stay near Gion or Kyoto Station so the trains are easy
- Get an IC card at the airport, it works on everything
Best March to May, and November.
Price this trip
Tell us where you are flying from and we will price flights and stays together, live.
