Kyoto; Monday, 14 April, 2025

I’d learnt the lesson from the previous day, so had a bit of a lie-in and made it down to breakfast just after 8am, at which point the breakfast space was blissfully quiet and fully stocked, so I was able to have a much more pleasant breakfast experience than the previous morning, as well as it taking considerably less time to get fully fed.

Stomach full I headed out of the hotel and over to the train station to catch the local train a couple of stops to the west of the city centre and the suburb of Arashiyama. My first stop of the morning was the Bamboo forest, about 10 minutes walk from the station. The forest is one of the must-do sights of the city, so needless to say it was pretty busy, but with a bit of careful aiming and zooming I was able to take a reasonable number of photos without all the crowds showing. The forest is a show of quite how large bamboo can grow, with the arrow straight bamboo trunks shooting straight up into the sky as high as many major trees, with a light flittering canopy of the leaves high above, with wind bowing the trunks slightly creating a tunnel like appearance along the path – which is what all the instagrammers were out looking for.

At the end of the walk through the bamboo forest the path leads into the local path, and at the top end of the path, a small hike up through the park, is a viewing point looking down into the Rankyo Gorge down below and the heavily wooded cliff sides leading down into it.

A short, steep, walk down through the park and you reach the banks of the Katsura River and it was here I discovered you can go on a 30 minute boat ride up part of the gorge on a traditional Japanese House Boat, the closest thing I could describe it to being a supersized punt with a pitched roof on top, and like a punt it’s powered by a single guy and a long pole pushing down on the river bed to push the boat up and down the river. It was a mighty feat of strength on behalf of our pilot and it gave some excellent views of the gorge and the mountains.

From the river I headed into the centre of Arashiyma to have a quick look around and stopped off for some Citron Dango which I consumed by the river before wandering over to the tram station in the centre of town to catch the tram back in towards Kyoto city centre, changing part way onto the metro and then onto the Keihan railway to head down to the southeastern suburb of Fushimi and the temple of Fushimi Inari.

The temple complex is a major site in the city, but what it’s perhaps most famous for are the gigantic number of Torii gates that have been placed over a pathway that leads up from the main temple into the mountain above. Along the pathway there are a number of smaller shrines, 15 in total, up to the summit with the walk at times being through a veritable tunnel of Torii gates and at other times just the odd gate here and there.

The lower part of the route is another of those must-visit tourist sights, and was predictably very busy as was the walk along the first half mile or so, but then the path starts to climb the mountain and at that point there is a quick route back to the main temple, which about 95% of tourist were taking, but I had decided to take the exercise and make the 90 or so minute walk up to the summit and back.

Along the way there were several places where you could stop to take in the views, and more importantly, the vending machines to top up the water (or Pocari Sweat) levels as you climbed up the mountain. After about 30 minutes of walking I made it to the crossroads, the point where the path to the summit splits into a loop route allowing you to climb up past the summit and back down without having to retrace your steps. You can go either way, but I opted to go clockwise which was showing as taking 20 minutes to reach the summit, as apposed to 12 the other way, which I, correctly, assumed meant it wasn’t as steep. I followed the route round all the way up to the summit and then back down the other side, taking in the many different temples along the way, though if you’re just after views there’s not point in going any further than the crossroads as this is the only place that has views down over the city.

I then headed back down the mountain and over to the station to catch the train back into the centre of Kyoto, stopping off at the main station to pick up my Shinkansen ticket for Thursday’s journey back to Tokyo, which I was glad I decided to do then as the trains were already filling up and I doubt I’d have been able to get a seat on the Thursday if I’d just turned up trying to book.

From Kyoto station I caught the local train back round to Nijo, popped into my now favourite diner, had a quick bite to eat, and then headed back to the hotel for a well deserved rest.