Items18The creator’s order
  1. 1Fushimi Inari-taishaFushimi Inari-taishaThousands 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…0
  2. 2Kiyomizu-deraKiyomizu-deraThe 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,…0
  3. 3Kinkaku-jiKinkaku-jiBe 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…0
  4. 4Ginkaku-jiGinkaku-jiThe 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…0
  5. 5Hōnen-inHōnen-inJust 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…0
  6. 6Nanzen-jiNanzen-jiThe 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…0
  7. 7Shisen-dōShisen-dōThis 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…0
  8. 8Shimogamo ShrineShimogamo ShrineThe 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…0
  9. 9Daitoku-jiDaitoku-jiThe 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…0
  10. 10Ryōan-jiRyōan-jiFifteen 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…0