Kyoto Temples and Shrines Worth Visiting

Thousands of vermilion torii gates climb the mountain behind this shrine, and it is the one essential worth setting an alarm for. The grounds never close, so you can walk the tunnels at first light before the tour groups arrive and the lower gates turn into a slow-moving line. The full loop to the summit and back takes about two to three hours. Most visitors turn around well before the top, so the farther you climb, the quieter the gates, the small sub-shrines and the fox statues become.

The wooden stage jutting from the main hall, 13 meters above the hillside, is one of Kyoto's great views, and the main hall and stage were built without nails. The catch is the approach: the steep, busy lanes of Higashiyama that lead up to it. The gates open at 6:00, far earlier than most temples, which is the whole trick. Arrive then and you can stand at the railing looking over the treetops toward the city with room to breathe, then walk down through the old streets while they are still quiet.

Be honest with yourself about this one. The Golden Pavilion, its top two floors covered in gold leaf, really is dazzling across its pond, but you view it from across the water and then follow the garden path past it with everyone else, and you cannot go inside. The building you see was rebuilt in 1955 after a monk set the original on fire in 1950. It opens at 9:00, so be at the gate then for the clearest view across the water, give it half an hour, and save your lingering for Ryoan-ji, which opens an hour earlier and is close enough to visit first.

The Silver Pavilion was never covered in silver, and that restraint is the point. The real draws are the raked "Sea of Silver Sand" with its large sand cone and a moss garden of ponds, islands, small bridges and streams that the path winds through. It opens at 8:30 for most of the year, and arriving then pays off. Afterward, walk the Philosopher's Path south toward Nanzen-ji, which takes about 30 to 45 minutes, with a short detour to Honen-in on the way.

Just off the Philosopher's Path, and it feels like another city. A moss-covered gate opens onto two raked sand mounds that you pass between, said to purify the visitor, and the monks rake designs into them, one often reflecting the season. The grounds are free and open from 6:00, which makes this the best early-morning stop in the Higashiyama hills; the main hall itself opens only for short spells in spring and autumn. Come here first, then walk on to Ginkaku-ji for its 8:30 opening.

The central grounds of this big Zen temple are free to walk, with separate fees only for the halls and subtemples, so you can wander without a ticket in hand. The massive Sanmon gate rises above the treetops, and a red-brick Meiji-era aqueduct, built for the canal from Lake Biwa, cuts straight through the precincts and photographs beautifully when nobody is under its arches. When the halls open at 8:40, skip the main crowd and pay the small fee for Nanzen-in, a subtemple with a pond garden that is at its best in autumn.

This was the hermitage of the scholar and poet Ishikawa Jozan, who lived here for some forty years, and it still feels like a private house rather than a monument. From the study you look out at a garden that blends a dry garden with a stroll garden, built around clipped shrubs, with azaleas that flower in spring. It sits in the quiet Ichijoji area of northern Kyoto, well away from the main sightseeing loops, and it is a fine choice for escaping the crowds that fill better-known temples.

The best shrine walk in Kyoto that is not Fushimi Inari. The approach runs through Tadasu-no-Mori, a forest of broadleaf trees, which is rare in Japan, where so much of the old mixed woodland was replaced with cedar. Walk it early in the morning and the vermilion gate at the end appears through the trees rather than over a crowd. Plan around the festivals: horseback archery fills the grounds on May 3, and the Aoi Matsuri procession ends here on May 15.

The subtemples Daisen-in, Ryogen-in and Zuiho-in Daitoku-ji is a Zen complex of nearly two dozen subtemples, and the joy is drifting between the few that open regularly. Daisen-in's rock gardens wrap around its building and rank among the finest of their kind; Ryogen-in has as many as five dry gardens on each side of its hall; Zuiho-in, the smallest of the regulars, has a raked gravel garden. Each charges a modest separate fee and opens at 9:00. Koto-in, famous for its maple-lined approach, is closed indefinitely, so do not plan around it.

Fifteen rocks set in small groups on patches of moss, in a rectangle of raked pebbles: Japan's most famous rock garden only works if you can sit on the veranda and look at it quietly. That is far easier early in the morning, when the crowds are usually smaller than later in the day. Doors open at 8:00 from March to November, an hour before Kinkaku-ji, so come here first and give the garden time while it is calm. The two temples are a short bus ride or a 20-minute walk apart, close enough to pair in one morning.

No garden here, but one of the most arresting rooms in Japan. The hall runs 120 meters, Japan's longest wooden structure, and inside a large wooden thousand-armed Kannon is flanked by 500 life-size thousand-armed Kannon on each side, rank after rank in ten rows. It is also the best rainy-day temple on this list, since the whole visit is indoors. Walk the length slowly rather than with the stream of groups; it opens at 9:00 from mid-November to March and 8:30 the rest of the year.

Two different temples depending on when you come. In autumn, people travel from all over Japan to see the maples from the covered Tsutenkyo Bridge, and the walkway becomes extremely crowded at the peak, usually mid to late November, when the bridge fee also rises. The rest of the year it is wonderfully calm, and the Hojo gardens are the reason to go: modern creations from the late 1930s that surround the building on all sides, using pebbles, rocks, moss and a checkered pattern. In maple season, the bridge opens at 8:30, half an hour before the gardens; be there for it.

Kyoto's oldest verified building stands here: a 38-meter five-story pagoda raised in 951, the only structure to survive the fires that repeatedly swept this vast temple in the southeast of the city. The lower grounds also hold Sanbo-in, whose garden dates to 1598, when Toyotomi Hideyoshi held a cherry blossom party here. Give it time for Kami-Daigo, the upper temple on the mountain, reached by a steep forest trail of about an hour and free to enter. The lower grounds open at 9:00 and the last entry to Kami-Daigo is 3:00 p.m., so start early. Weeping cherries bloom in early April, when fees rise, and the maples around the Bentendo hall peak in late November.

The essential in Arashiyama, and one of Kyoto's UNESCO World Heritage Sites, with gardens and walking paths behind its halls. The heart of Arashiyama draws the district's biggest crowds, so treat Tenryu-ji as your first stop at its 8:30 opening rather than an afternoon add-on. Once it fills up, keep heading north and west into Sagano, where Gio-ji and Otagi Nenbutsu-ji offer the calm the center has lost.

Tiny, shady and green, this is the moss garden to choose if you can only see one. Most visitors stream past its entrance on the way through Sagano, and those who turn in find a grove of thick moss under maple trees, with a little thatched-roof hall that looks best from outside. The temple is named for Gio, a dancer favored by Taira no Kiyomori, leader of the Heike clan, who came here to live out her life as a nun. Autumn is especially striking, when the leaves turn above the green moss.

Hidden in the hills at the far western edge of Arashiyama, this temple is crowded only with stone. Some 1,200 rakan statues, representing the disciples of the Buddha, fill the slopes. They were carved by ordinary visitors rather than professionals, under the guidance of the sculptor-priest Kocho Nishimura, and all added between 1981 and 1991, which gives the place a warmth and humor that grander temples lack. It does not draw the crowds of central Arashiyama, but check the day before you go: it is closed on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and open from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on other days. Kyoto Bus routes from Kyoto Station stop at Otagi Dera Mae.

A temple you have to walk for, in the forested mountains north of the city. The Eizan Railway takes about 30 minutes from Demachiyanagi to Kurama, then it is a climb of 30 to 45 minutes to the main buildings, or a cable car covers about half the way. The best of it lies beyond the main hall: a forest trail carries on over the mountain past smaller temple buildings and down to Kibune, a small town in the next valley, in about an hour, steep in places. It makes a half day of mountain paths and quiet halls rather than a quick stop. The main hall is open from 9:00 a.m. to 4:15 p.m., and admission is 500 yen.

Worth the 40-minute bus ride north to the village of Ohara for one sight alone: a carpet of deep green moss under tall trees, with small stone jizo statues with smiling faces tucked into it. You can admire the garden sitting in the main hall before walking down among the trees. Ohara's autumn color peaks a little earlier than central Kyoto's, usually from late October to mid-November, so it is a good escape when the city's maple spots are packed. Kyoto Bus 17 runs from Kyoto Station, then it is a 15-minute walk.