Luxury hotels in Kyoto

Kyoto guide

Fushimi Inari: walking through ten thousand gates

Kyoto's most photographed shrine rewards those who start at sunrise and keep climbing.

Fushimi Inari Taisha is the head shrine of Inari, the deity of rice and prosperity, and its tunnels of vermilion torii gates climb the whole of Mount Inari. Each gate was donated by a family or a business, and their names are painted on the back.

The shrine never closes and charges no entry, so timing is everything. Arrive at first light and the lower gates are almost empty; most visitors turn back within the first half hour, and above the Yotsutsuji crossroads the path becomes a quiet forest walk with views over the city. The full loop takes two to three hours at an easy pace.

Follow it with a late breakfast in Higashiyama and an afternoon at Kiyomizu-dera, the other name on every Kyoto list. In spring and autumn we book Kyoto first, because its best hotels have few rooms and fill long before Tokyo.

Arashiyama: the bamboo grove and Tenryu-ji

The Arashiyama bamboo grove, a path through towering green stalks on the western edge of Kyoto, is one of the most photographed places in Japan and is only peaceful at dawn. Beside it, Tenryu-ji, a Zen temple and UNESCO site, has a fourteenth-century garden that borrows the mountains as its backdrop.

Cross the Togetsukyo bridge over the Katsura river, visit the Okochi Sanso villa and its tea garden, and take the Sagano romantic train or a boat down the Hozu river. Autumn colours in November and cherry blossoms in April are the peak seasons.

Gion, Kiyomizu-dera and the geisha district

Kiyomizu-dera, whose great wooden stage juts out over the hillside, is one of Kyoto's most cited temples, and the lanes leading down from it, Sannenzaka and Ninenzaka, are the most beautiful in the old city. Go at opening or in the evening, when the day crowds have gone.

Below lies Gion, Kyoto's geisha district, with wooden teahouses along Hanamikoji and the Shirakawa canal. Photographing geiko and maiko in private lanes is now restricted; the respectful way to meet them is a private dinner arranged through an ochaya or a hotel.