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Kyoto, Japan, top 10 things to do (Wimup travel guide)
▶ Video · Kyoto Temple Route
Video guide · 1:35:44
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Top 10AsiaJapan

Top 10 Things To Do in Kyoto

Country
Japan
Best months
Apr · May · Nov
Population
~1.4M
Language
Japanese
Budget / day
¥13,000–24,000
Quick answer

The best things to do in Kyoto are the torii tunnels at Fushimi Inari, Kinkaku-ji at opening, the Higashiyama lanes up to Kiyomizu-dera, the Arashiyama bamboo path into the Tenryu-ji garden, and the nightingale floors of Nijo Castle. Give the city three days and treat the first hour after opening as the whole strategy: every headline site is calm at eight and solid by eleven.

Kyoto Temple Route

▶ Video guide Open the film page (1:35:44) →

Kyoto was the imperial capital from 794 until the court left for Tokyo in 1869, and it was spared the bombing that flattened most Japanese cities. What survived is not a museum quarter but a working city of 1.4 million with roughly 1,600 Buddhist temples and 400 Shinto shrines inside it.

The 10 best things to do in Kyoto

Walk the torii tunnels at Fushimi Inari, Kyoto, Japan
1

Walk the torii tunnels at Fushimi Inari

Shrine· 68 Fukakusa Yabunouchicho, Fushimi-ku, Kyoto

The head shrine of the thousands of Inari shrines across Japan, and what everyone climbs it for is the tunnel of vermilion gates up Mount Inari. Every gate was paid for by a company or a family, so the walk down reads as a ledger of Japanese business. The full circuit takes two to three hours.

Time2 to 3 hr for the full loop
CostFree
Best atFirst light
TipAbove Yotsutsuji the gates keep going and the crowds do not
Map↗ Website
Take Kinkaku-ji at opening time, Kyoto, Japan
2

Take Kinkaku-ji at opening time

Temple· 1 Kinkakujicho, Kita-ku, Kyoto

A reliquary hall sheathed in gold leaf on the edge of a pond dug to reflect it. What stands there dates from 1955: a novice burned the original in 1950. You cannot go inside; the visit is a one-way path around the water. It is the most photographed building in the city and it survives the fame.

Time45 min
CostTicketed
Best atOpening time
TipThe path is one way, so pick your angle before you start walking
Map↗ Website
Climb the Higashiyama lanes to Kiyomizu-dera, Kyoto, Japan
3

Climb the Higashiyama lanes to Kiyomizu-dera

Temple· 1-294 Kiyomizu, Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto

The main hall hangs off the hillside on a lattice of keyaki pillars joined without nails, and the veranda over that frame is the image of the city. The approach is half the visit: Sannenzaka and Ninenzaka, two stepped lanes of wooden shopfronts, turn a queue into a walk.

Time1.5 hr with the approach
CostTicketed
Best atEarly morning or at dusk
TipGo up through Sannenzaka and come down Chawanzaka so you never walk the same lane twice
Map↗ Website
Cross the Arashiyama bamboo path into Tenryu-ji, Kyoto, Japan
4

Cross the Arashiyama bamboo path into Tenryu-ji

Garden· 68 Sagatenryuji Susukinobabacho, Ukyo-ku, Kyoto

The bamboo path is fifteen minutes long and photographs better than it walks, which is worth knowing. The reason to be here stands at the other end: a pond garden laid out in the fourteenth century that has kept its shape since, borrowing the Arashiyama ridge as a backdrop it does not own.

Time2 hr
CostGarden ticketed
Best atBefore 8am
TipThe north gate at the top of the bamboo path leads straight into the garden
Map↗ Website
Listen to the nightingale floors at Nijo Castle, Kyoto, Japan
5

Listen to the nightingale floors at Nijo Castle

Castle· 541 Nijojocho, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto

Built in 1603 as the shogunate residence in a city that still held the emperor. Ninomaru Palace is the rare survival: tatami rooms in ascending order of rank, Kano screens, and floorboards fitted to chirp underfoot. In 1867 the shogun announced here that he was returning power to the emperor.

Time1.5 hr
CostTicketed
Best atWeekday morning
TipNinomaru Palace is shoes off, and photography inside is not allowed
Map↗ Website
Follow the Philosopher's Path down from Ginkaku-ji, Kyoto, Japan
6

Follow the Philosopher's Path down from Ginkaku-ji

Temple· 2 Ginkakujicho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto

The retirement villa of a shogun, finished in 1482 and never actually silvered. That absence is the point: this is the restrained end of the aesthetic the Golden Pavilion started. Leaving by the south gate puts you on two kilometres of canal-side walking under cherry trees.

Time2 hr with the walk
CostTicketed
Best atLate afternoon
TipWalk the path north to south and finish at the Nanzen-ji aqueduct
Map↗ Website
7

Sit with the fifteen stones at Ryoan-ji

Garden· 13 Ryoanji Goryonoshitacho, Ukyo-ku, Kyoto

Fifteen stones in five groups, set in raked gravel inside a low wall, with nothing else in it. Nobody knows who laid it out, and the temple offers no reading, which is why it has absorbed centuries of interpretation without settling. Give it twenty minutes, at opening, before the veranda fills.

Time45 min
CostTicketed
Best atOpening time
TipSit on the veranda long enough to try counting the stones from both ends
Map↗ Website
Walk the length of Sanjusangendo, Kyoto, Japan
8

Walk the length of Sanjusangendo

Temple· 657 Sanjusangendo Mawaricho, Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto

A hall 120 metres long holding 1,001 statues of Kannon: a thousand standing figures in ten ranks, each with its own carved face. Photography is not permitted, which turns out to be the making of it. Walk the length once at pace for the scale, then again slowly, looking at faces.

Time1 hr
CostTicketed
Best atAny time of day
TipNo photography inside, so walk it twice instead: once for scale, once for the faces
Map
Eat along Nishiki Market, Kyoto, Japan
9

Eat along Nishiki Market

Market· Nishikikoji-dori, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto

Five covered blocks and around 130 shops, most of them narrow and specialised: pickles, tofu skin, dashi, grilled eel, tamagoyaki cut warm off the pan. Eating as you walk is discouraged and most stalls ask you to eat where you buy, so treat it as short stops rather than a crawl.

Time1 hr
CostFree to walk
Best atLate morning
TipEat at the stall you bought from. The street asks you not to walk and eat
Map↗ Website
Walk Gion at dusk, and know where you may not go, Kyoto, Japan
10

Walk Gion at dusk, and know where you may not go

Neighborhood· Hanamikoji-dori, Gion, Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto

Gion is a working entertainment district, not a set, and the wooden ochaya are private houses of business. Since 2024 the private alleys have been closed to visitors, with fines for entering. Hanamikoji and Shijo stay open. Go just after sunset when the lanterns come on.

Time1 hr
CostFree
Best atJust after sunset
TipStay on Hanamikoji and Shijo
Map

8 of the 10, mapped

Kyoto · 8 spots
AllLandmarksMuseumsFoodFree

Kyoto travel FAQ

How many days do you need in Kyoto?+
Three. One for eastern Higashiyama, Kiyomizu-dera down through Gion; one for the north west, Kinkaku-ji and Ryoan-ji with Nijo Castle on the way back; one for Arashiyama and Fushimi Inari at either end of the day. Two days means dropping one of those three, and a single day means Fushimi Inari at dawn and Higashiyama after it.
When is the best time to visit Kyoto?+
Early April for the cherry blossom and the second half of November for the maples, which are also the two most expensive and crowded weeks of the year. May and early June are close behind on weather with a fraction of the pressure. Avoid mid July to August: the valley traps heat and humidity.
How do you get around Kyoto?+
Buses and two subway lines cover the city, with the Keihan, Hankyu, Keifuku and Eizan railways reaching Fushimi, Arashiyama and the northern hills. An IC card works on all of them and is simpler than buying a pass, though the one-day subway and bus pass pays off from around four rides. Higashiyama is walked, not ridden.
How do you get from Kansai Airport to Kyoto?+
The JR Haruka limited express runs direct from the airport to Kyoto Station in about 75 minutes, roughly every half hour through the day. The airport limousine bus takes around 90 minutes and is the better option with heavy luggage. From Osaka Itami, the limousine bus is the only direct connection, at about an hour.
Can you still visit Gion, and will you see geiko?+
Yes, on the public streets. Since April 2024 the private alleys have been closed to visitors, with no-entry signs and fines, while Hanamikoji and Shijo remain open. Seeing a geiko on the street is luck rather than a plan. The reliable way is a ticketed performance such as the Miyako Odori in April.
Temples & shrines

Best temples & shrines in Kyoto

Ten beyond the headline names, from the tallest pagoda in Japan to a shrine standing in old-growth forest.
UNESCO
Minami-ku

To-ji

Shingon head temple

Kukai was given To-ji in 823 to protect the new capital, and its five-storey pagoda is the tallest wooden one in the country. A flea market fills the grounds monthly.

Map↗ Website
Higashiyama-ku

Tofuku-ji

Zen, autumn colour

Founded in 1236 and still holding twenty-five subtemples. The Tsutenkyo bridge over a maple valley is the most photographed autumn view in Kyoto.

Map↗ Website
Sakyo-ku

Nanzen-ji

Zen, free grounds

The grounds cost nothing to walk and hold the vast Sanmon gate and a brick aqueduct driven through the temple in 1888 to carry water from Lake Biwa.

Map
Kita-ku

Daitoku-ji and Daisen-in

Zen subtemples

A walled complex of more than twenty subtemples, only a few open at a time. Daisen-in compresses a whole landscape into a strip of gravel.

Map
Shimogamo Shrine
UNESCO
Sakyo-ku

Shimogamo Shrine

Shinto, UNESCO

One of the oldest shrines in the city, standing in a remnant of primeval forest that has never been cleared. It shares the Aoi Matsuri each May.

Map
Kamigamo Shrine
UNESCO
Kita-ku

Kamigamo Shrine

Shinto, UNESCO

The upstream half of the pair, older than the capital itself, with two cones of white sand in the forecourt standing in for the sacred mountain.

Map
Higashiyama-ku

Kennin-ji

Oldest Zen temple

Founded in 1202 by the monk who brought both Rinzai Zen and tea seeds back from China. The twin dragons on the Hatto ceiling cover 108 tatami mats.

Map
UNESCO
Shimogyo-ku

Nishi Hongan-ji

Jodo Shinshu head temple

Two enormous halls, both national treasures, ten minutes from Kyoto Station and free to enter. The finest Momoyama carving in the city, with no queue.

Map
Higashiyama-ku

Chion-in

Jodo head temple

The Sanmon gate of 1621 is the largest wooden temple gate in Japan, and the bell behind it takes seventeen monks to ring at New Year.

Map
Kurama-deraKurama

Kurama-dera

Mountain temple

Half an hour north and then a climb through cedar roots to a temple on the ridge. Walk over the top and down into Kibune rather than returning.

Map
Gardens

Best gardens in Kyoto

Six gardens where the design is the argument: moss, borrowed hills, and a Meiji villa that changed how Japanese gardens are made.
Saiho-ji (Kokedera)
UNESCO
Nishikyo-ku

Saiho-ji (Kokedera)

Reservation required

The moss temple, around 120 varieties of it under a maple canopy. Entry is by advance application, and visitors copy a sutra before they are let in.

Map↗ Website
Sakyo-ku

Murin-an

Meiji villa garden

Yamagata Aritomo built this villa in the 1890s with running water from the Biwa canal and the Higashiyama ridge borrowed as a backdrop.

Map↗ Website
Shosei-enShimogyo-ku

Shosei-en

Detached temple garden

Higashi Hongan-ji's walled garden, ten minutes from Kyoto Station, with a pond, teahouses and almost no visitors. The best first-morning garden in the city.

Map
Heian Shrine gardenOkazaki

Heian Shrine garden

Weeping cherries

The Shin'en circles the shrine on four sides, and its weeping cherries in early April are the ones Kawabata put in a novel. Stepping stones cross the pond.

Map
Kita-ku

Entsu-ji

Borrowed scenery

A small flat garden whose real subject is Mount Hiei, framed between cedar trunks so precisely that the mountain reads as part of the composition.

Map
Sakyo-ku

Konchi-in

Kobori Enshu

A Nanzen-ji subtemple with a crane and tortoise garden documented as Kobori Enshu's work, which almost no garden of the period can claim.

Map
Where to eat

Best restaurants in Kyoto

Ten kitchens, from three Michelin stars to a counter of obanzai bowls and a ramen shop that queues from breakfast.
Three stars
Higashiyama

Kikunoi Honten

Kaiseki

Three Michelin stars, and the room where most people first understand what kaiseki is arguing about. Book well ahead through the restaurant or a concierge.

Map↗ Website
Three stars
Nanzenji

Hyotei

Kaiseki

Four hundred years old and three Michelin stars for seventeen consecutive years. The half-boiled egg at the start of breakfast is the most quoted dish in the city.

Map
Three stars
Nakagyo

Nakamura

Kaiseki

A three-star kitchen that has held the rating for six consecutive years, working the classical Kyoto repertoire without any modern reinvention.

Map
Kiyamachi

Roan Kikunoi

Counter kaiseki

The downtown sibling, served at a counter rather than in private rooms, which makes the same cooking legible. Easier to book than the main house.

Map↗ Website
Kiyamachi

Menami

Obanzai

Obanzai is Kyoto home cooking, and here it arrives the traditional way, in large bowls along the counter that you choose from by pointing.

Map
Nanzenji

Okutan Nanzenji

Yudofu

Simmered tofu in a temple garden, served on tatami looking out at the trees. A dish with four ingredients and no room to hide.

Map
Gion

Izuju

Kyoto sushi

Facing the Yasaka Shrine gate and working the older Kyoto style: saba-zushi pressed with kelp, and box-pressed hako-zushi. Nothing here is a nigiri counter.

Map
Shiokoji

Honke Daiichi Asahi

Ramen

Kyoto ramen is dark, soy-heavy and unfashionably rich, and this shop by the station has served it since the 1940s to a queue that starts early.

Map
Pontocho

Kichi Kichi Omurice

Omurice

A five-seat counter where the chef performs the tableside opening of the omelette. Theatre as much as dinner, and entirely booked out in advance.

Map
Nishiki

Nishiki Warai

Okonomiyaki

Griddle food in the middle of the market: okonomiyaki and negiyaki cooked in front of you. The right lunch after a morning of grazing.

Map
Made in Kyoto

Best craft workshops in Kyoto

Five places where the craft is being made in front of you rather than sold as a souvenir.
Nishijin Textile CenterKamigyo-ku

Nishijin Textile Center

Weaving

Nishijin has woven for the court since the fifteenth century, and the centre puts the looms on the ground floor where a centimetre of obi takes an hour.

Map
Kawaramachi

Kaikado

Tea caddies

Six generations have made copper and tin tea canisters here since 1875, with lids that sink closed under their own weight. The design has not changed.

Map
Shimogyo-ku

Kodai Yuzen-en Gallery

Yuzen dyeing

Yuzen is the stencil and paste-resist dyeing that gives Kyoto kimono their painted look. The gallery demonstrates the stages in order.

Map
Okazaki

Kyoto Handicraft Center

Multi-craft workshops

Short workshops in woodblock printing, cloisonne and metal inlay, booked by the hour and taught in English. The practical option for one free afternoon.

Map
Okazaki

Museum of Kyoto Traditional Crafts

Free, 74 crafts

Free, and the fastest way to understand what the city still makes: dyeing, lacquer, bamboo and metal leaf, with artisans demonstrating on rotation.

Map
Where to stay and wander

Best neighborhoods in Kyoto

Eight districts and what each one is actually good for.
East

Higashiyama

Temples, lanes

The stepped lanes below Kiyomizu-dera, and most of the postcard city. Stay here for early temple mornings and accept the middle of the day.

Map
Gion and MiyagawachoEast

Gion and Miyagawacho

Geiko districts

Two of the five hanamachi. Gion holds the theatres and the ochaya, Miyagawacho is quieter and still working. Public streets only.

Map
Pontocho and KiyamachiCentre

Pontocho and Kiyamachi

Dinner and drinking

A single lantern-lit lane one block wide between the river and the canal, and the densest concentration of dinner in the city.

Map
Arashiyama and SaganoWest

Arashiyama and Sagano

Bamboo, river

Bamboo, temples, the Hozu river and the Sagano scenic railway along it. Twenty minutes from the centre, and worth a night if you want the grove before the trains arrive.

Map
FushimiSouth

Fushimi

Sake breweries

Kyoto's sake district, built on soft groundwater, with brewery warehouses along the canal and tasting rooms behind them. Combine it with the Inari shrine.

Map
NishijinNorth west

Nishijin

Weaving quarter

Narrow machiya streets, weaving workshops still at work behind them, and almost no tour groups. The place to see how a Kyoto residential block is put together.

Map
Demachiyanagi and the Kamo deltaNorth

Demachiyanagi and the Kamo delta

Student Kyoto

Where the Takano and Kamo rivers meet, with stepping stones across the fork and students on the banks. The Eizan line north starts here.

Map
Nakagyo and TeramachiCentre

Nakagyo and Teramachi

Downtown

The covered arcades, Nishiki running west off them, and the subway crossing at Karasuma Oike. Everything in the guide is inside forty minutes from here.

Map
Out of town

Best day trips in Kyoto

Six trips, none of them more than ninety minutes from Kyoto Station.
NaraNara Prefecture

Nara

45 min by rail

Japan's capital before Kyoto, and Todai-ji still holds the largest bronze Buddha in the country. The deer are wild animals with a bowing habit.

Map↗ Website
UjiKyoto Prefecture

Uji

20 min by rail

The matcha town, and Byodo-in's Phoenix Hall of 1052 is the building on the ten yen coin. Drink the tea where it is grown.

Map↗ Website
Kurama and KibuneNorth

Kurama and Kibune

30 min, then a hike

Take the Eizan line to Kurama, climb over the ridge past the temple and drop into Kibune, about two hours of walking. Riverside platforms in summer.

Map
North

Ohara

1 hr by bus

A farming valley an hour north by bus, with Sanzen-in's moss garden and small figures hidden in it. Autumn is the reason, and mid-November is when it turns.

Map↗ Website
HimejiHyogo Prefecture

Himeji

1 hr by Shinkansen

The best surviving castle in Japan, never burned and never taken, with its keep and the maze of gates below it intact. Straight up from the station.

Map↗ Website
Osaka Prefecture

Osaka

15 min by Shinkansen

The opposite argument to Kyoto: loud, modern, and built around eating. Close enough that dinner in Dotonbori and a late train back is a normal evening.

MapWimup guide
Tea

Best tea houses in Kyoto

Six rooms for matcha, from a tea merchant trading since 1717 to a kuzukiri counter in Gion.
Teramachi

Ippodo, Kaboku Tearoom

Matcha and sencha

Ippodo has sold tea in Kyoto since 1717, and the tearoom serves what you have just been choosing between, with the leaf and water temperature explained as it is poured.

Map↗ Website
Gion

Kagizen Yoshifusa

Kuzukiri

A confectioner on Shijo since the Edo period, with a dark tearoom behind. Order the kuzukiri, cut to order and served cold with black sugar syrup.

Map
Nishinotoin

Marukyu Koyamaen

Uji matcha

An Uji tea house that grinds its own matcha and serves the strong koicha most cafes will not make. The tea is the whole event here.

Map
Gion

Gion Tsujiri

Matcha sweets

The Shijo flagship of a Uji tea house, and the busiest matcha parfait counter in the city. Come for the sweets rather than the ceremony.

Map
Uji

Nakamura Tokichi

Uji, since 1854

Worth the train ride on its own: a tea merchant's house in Uji with a garden room, serving matcha jelly and soba made with tea.

Map
Sanjo

Fukujuen Kyoto Flagship

Tea, floor by floor

Eight floors of one tea house: shop at the bottom, tasting counter above, a kaiseki room at the top. Useful for comparing grades side by side.

Map
What's on

Festivals & annual events in Kyoto (2026)

The calendar the city plans its year around, and the dates that fill every hotel.
Feb

Setsubun

The turn of the seasons in early February, marked with bean throwing and demon plays.

Apr

Miyako Odori

The Gion Kobu geiko and maiko dance through April, a programme first staged in 1872.

Apr

Cherry blossom

Kyoto usually turns in the first ten days of April. Maruyama Park and the Philosopher's Path justify the crowds.

May

Aoi Matsuri

On 15 May a column in Heian court dress walks from the Imperial Palace to Shimogamo and on to Kamigamo, ox carts included.

Jul

Gion Matsuri

A month of ritual with two float parades at its centre in July. The evenings before each parade close the downtown streets.

Aug

Gozan no Okuribi

On the night of 16 August five giant characters are burned into the hillsides to send the ancestors' spirits back.

Oct

Jidai Matsuri and the Kurama fire festival

Both fall on 22 October: costumes spanning eleven centuries by day, and burning pine torches through Kurama after dark.

Nov

Autumn colour

Peak is usually the second half of November. Tofuku-ji, Eikando and Kiyomizu-dera all hold evening openings.

Getting around

Kyoto transport & airports

How to arrive from Kansai and how to move once you are here.
KIX

Kansai International Airport

The region's gateway, on a man-made island in Osaka Bay. The JR Haruka is the only direct train to Kyoto Station, about every half hour and roughly 75 minutes.

Map↗ Website
ITM

Osaka Itami Airport

The domestic airport for Kansai, closer than KIX but with no direct rail link to Kyoto. The limousine bus runs to Kyoto Station in around an hour, which beats two changes.

Map
JR

Tokaido Shinkansen

Kyoto Station is on the original 1964 Shinkansen line: Tokyo a little over two hours, Shin-Osaka about fifteen minutes. Nozomi services are excluded from the nationwide JR Pass.

Map↗ Website
Kyoto City

Buses, subway and private rail

Two subway lines cross at Karasuma Oike and the bus network fills in everything else, with four private railways running out to Fushimi, Arashiyama and the northern hills.

Map↗ Website
Traditional food

Must-try dishes in Kyoto, Japan

What a city with no coastline learned to cook.
Kaiseki, Kyoto (Wimup travel guide)

Kaiseki

The multi-course meal Kyoto refined out of tea ceremony food: seasonal, sequenced and built around a dashi.

Yudofu, Kyoto (Wimup travel guide)

Yudofu

Tofu simmered in kombu broth and eaten with ponzu, served in the temple restaurants around Nanzen-ji.

Uji matcha sweets, Kyoto (Wimup travel guide)

Uji matcha sweets

Uji has grown tea since the twelfth century, and the parfaits come from that leaf rather than a flavouring.

Obanzai

Kyoto home cooking, several small dishes of simmered vegetables, tofu and dried fish served together.

Yuba

The skin lifted off simmering soymilk, served fresh in sheets or rolled.

Saba-zushi

Mackerel cured with salt and vinegar and pressed onto rice under a sheet of kelp.

Nishin soba

Buckwheat noodles in hot broth under a fillet of dried herring simmered sweet.

Kyoto pickles

A category here rather than a garnish: turnip sliced paper thin, aubergine stained with shiso, suguki soured.

Kyoto fact sheet

Kyoto at a glance

The essentials worth knowing before you go.
Country
Japan
Region
Kyoto Prefecture, Kansai
Population
About 1,374,000 (city, 2025 resident register)
Founded
Heian-kyo, 794
Nickname
The thousand-year capital
Language
Japanese
Currency
Japanese yen (¥)
Time zone
JST (UTC+9)
Calling code
+81 75
Airports
Kansai (KIX), Osaka Itami (ITM)
Power
100V, type A
Emergency
110 police, 119 fire and ambulance
Ideal length
3 days
Getting around
By subway, bus and private rail, on foot in Higashiyama
Tourism board
Official site

Interesting facts

  • Kyoto was the imperial capital from 794 until 1869. The palace stayed, which is why emperors were enthroned here until 1928.
  • The UNESCO listing is not one place but seventeen: temples, shrines and a castle registered together, three of them outside the city.
  • The torii at Fushimi Inari are donations, with the donor name and date painted on the back of each gate.
  • The street grid copies Tang-dynasty Chang'an, with numbered avenues running east to west.
  • Kyoto was taken off the American atomic bomb target list in 1945, which is why so much of what is here is original.

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