Kyoto Travel Guide

Kyoto was Japan's imperial capital for a thousand years, and it remains the country's soul — a city of some two thousand temples and shrines where the old Japan of tea, gardens, and geisha is still, just, a living thing. The set pieces are unforgettable: the golden pavilion of Kinkaku-ji mirrored in its pond, the endless vermilion torii gates climbing the hill at Fushimi Inari, the wooden terrace of Kiyomizu-dera over the maples, the raked gravel of Ryōan-ji's Zen garden.

But Kyoto is best in its quieter registers — a morning in the Arashiyama bamboo grove before the crowds, an evening in the lantern-lit lanes of Gion hoping to glimpse a geiko, a kaiseki dinner in a centuries-old machiya townhouse. Compact and ringed by hills, it's an easy base for Nara's deer and Great Buddha too. Come in spring for cherry blossom or autumn for the maples, and book ahead — the secret is long out.