Handpicked experience · Kyoto
Kyoto, Japan
A gold pavilion rebuilt after a 1950 arson, corridors engineered to chirp underfoot, an archery record set in 1686, and thousands of gates paid for by name.
Maximize your visit to Kyoto and join this comprehensive full-day tour of the city.
Find the best dining spots at Nishiki Market, and get to try a variety of dishes that are Halal and vegetarian-friendly!
Visit Kyoto's most well-known attractions and get to know their rich history with the help of your guide!
Hotel pick up and drop off plus transportation to each location are also included for a worry-free day.
Five landmark sites in one day with the transport handled
A guide who can explain what you are looking at inside each
The hillside stage and the city view from it
As much or as little of the Fushimi Inari climb as you want
Timing shaped around your group rather than a fixed departure
A private full day of seven hours across Kyoto's best-known sites: the golden pavilion at Kinkaku-ji, the shogun's palace at Nijo Castle, the long hall of Sanjusangen-do, the wooden stage at Kiyomizu-dera and the tunnel of gates at Fushimi Inari, with a guide and transport between them.
Seven hours of moving and looking, with a fair amount of stairs — Kiyomizu-dera sits on a slope and Fushimi Inari climbs a mountain, though you go only as far up as you want. Shoes come off at several interiors, so wear something you can slip out of.
The gold pavilion you photograph was built in 1955. The building it replaced, standing since the fourteenth century, was burned down in 1950 by a young monk of the temple. The reconstruction is faithful, and the gold leaf was applied five times thicker during a later restoration than the original ever carried. Each of the three floors is in a different architectural style — aristocratic, samurai, and Chinese-influenced Zen — stacked deliberately, one era on top of another.
The corridors of the palace inside Nijo Castle are laid with nightingale floors. Metal clamps beneath the boards rub against nails as you step, producing a chirping sound that cannot be avoided by walking softly. Whether it was built as an alarm or simply happened is argued about, but the effect is real, and a whole corridor of visitors sounds like a hedge full of birds. In one of these rooms, in 1867, the last shogun announced he was returning power to the emperor.
Sanjusangen-do is a wooden hall about a hundred and twenty metres long, filled with a thousand standing gilded figures flanking a large seated one. It is also a former archery range: for centuries archers competed to shoot the length of the veranda, through a low overhang, for twenty-four hours without stopping. The record, set in 1686, stands at 8,133 successful shots out of just over 13,000 attempts — roughly nine arrows a minute, all day and all night.
Kiyomizu-dera's platform juts out over the hillside on a frame of tall pillars joined without a single nail. During the Edo period a belief circulated that surviving a jump from it would grant your wish. Around two hundred and thirty people tried, and most survived, thanks to the trees below. The phrase "to jump from the stage at Kiyomizu" still means to take a decision you cannot walk back.
The thousands of vermilion gates at Fushimi Inari are donations. Walk up one side and they are blank; look back and every one carries the name of the company or family that paid for it, and the date. The shrine is dedicated to the deity of rice and, by extension, of business, which is why so many of the names are firms.
Entry to the temples and shrines is arranged separately from the tour. Fushimi Inari is open at all hours and is the one place worth returning to alone, early.
Open it to pick a date and work out the price.
What the fare covers, and what to budget for separately.
The practical detail, and the answers people actually ask for.
No. A monk of the temple burned the medieval building down in 1950 and the present pavilion dates from 1955. A later restoration applied gold leaf five times thicker than the original had.
Metal clamps under the boards grind against nails with every step. Walking quietly does not help, which is why the effect is so often described as an intruder alarm.
The last shogun announced there that he was handing power back to the emperor, which ended more than two and a half centuries of shogunal rule.
Archers shot the full length of the veranda under a low overhang for twenty-four hours straight. The 1686 record is 8,133 successful shots from just over 13,000 arrows — about nine a minute, without pause.
On tall pillars joined without nails, projecting over the hillside. An Edo-period belief held that surviving a jump from it granted a wish; the phrase for jumping from it still means committing irrevocably.
Each is a donation, and the donor's name and date are painted on the back. Inari is the deity of rice and therefore of commerce, so most donors are businesses.
No. The gate tunnels start at the bottom and the full loop takes two to three hours; the tour goes as far up as your group wants and turns back.