Kyoto

Historic town

Only 30 minutes from Osaka by train away is Kyoto. Compare to Osaka, Kyoto is a more historic place with many temples, Shrines and other historical sights. Most of the temples are listed under the UNESCO World Heritages. For us just not possible to see them all. So we decided to see the temple Kiyomizudera, the golden temple Kinkakuji, Ryoanji and Tenryuji in Arashiyama. Furthermore we went to some nice Japanese gardens, Fushimi Inari Shrine at Taisha Park (It´s a huge park / forest area), to the Kyoto imperial palace and the Nijojo Castle. Before Tokyo was the capital of Japan, Kyoto was for a long period the capital of Japan. The first day in Kyoto it was raining heavily, too bad for us…

 

Outside of the city, on the West side is a suburb called Arashiyama. This place is famous for its Bamboo garden where you can have a nice walk, a monkey park and of course some temples and beautiful Japanese gardens. I recommend to go there early in the morning to avoid the tourist crowds.