Skip to content
Komorebi木漏れ日
Kyoto temple garden in autumn, red maples around a pond and stone bridge

Journeys · 8 days

Two old capitals, one pace: early, quiet, and never rushed.

Eight days, two cities, and almost no rushing. We start most mornings before the gates open and finish most evenings at a counter of eight seats.

Kyoto gets five nights, split between a ryokan and a machiya of your own. Nara gets the time it deserves: deer at dawn, a garden at noon, and a temple town after the day-trippers have gone.

Day by day

  1. Day 1

    Arrival, and a bath

    Kyoto

    Night at Yuzuriha
    morning
    Your guide meets you at the airport and the luggage goes ahead on its own, so the train ride is yours.
    afternoon
    Check in, change into a yukata, and take tea in a room that looks onto moss and a single maple.
    evening
    A first kaiseki dinner served in your room, nine small courses that follow whatever the season is doing that week.

  2. Day 2

    Before the gates open

    Kyoto, Higashiyama

    Night at Yuzuriha
    morning
    At 6:45 you are at Tōfuku-ji, with the wooden bridge and the gardener raking gravel to yourselves.
    afternoon
    Walk the back lanes of Higashiyama to a family-run shop that has made bamboo tea whisks for generations.
    evening
    Dinner at a counter in Gion, eight seats, the chef slicing sashimi an arm’s length away.

  3. Day 3

    North into the hills

    Ōhara

    Night at Yuzuriha
    morning
    A slow drive north to Ōhara, where Sanzen-in’s moss garden is quietest in the first hour.
    afternoon
    Lunch of pickles and miso soup at a farmhouse, then a walk among rice terraces and shiso fields.
    evening
    Back to the ryokan for a long soak in cypress, then a simple supper of tofu and river fish.

  4. Day 4

    A house of your own

    Kyoto, Nishijin

    Night at Kinari Machiya
    morning
    Move into your machiya, a narrow townhouse with a tiny inner garden and a kitchen you may never use.
    afternoon
    A weaver in Nishijin shows you the loom, the silk, and the patience it takes to make an obi.
    evening
    Dinner at a neighbourhood izakaya the owner’s mother still cooks for; the menu is written on a blackboard.

  5. Day 5

    Gardens and the west

    Kyoto, Arashiyama

    Night at Kinari Machiya
    morning
    Ōkōchi Sansō’s hillside garden at opening, with tea and a sweet included, before the bamboo path fills.
    afternoon
    Cross the river to Saga-Toriimoto, a street of thatched roofs where the crowds thin to almost nothing.
    evening
    A private shōjin ryōri dinner, the vegetarian temple cooking that taught Kyoto how to cook.

  6. Day 6

    Deer at dawn

    Nara

    morning
    Into Nara by 7:30, when the deer are still sleepy and Tōdai-ji’s great hall is quiet enough to hear.
    afternoon
    Lunch in Naramachi, then an hour in Isuien, a garden that borrows the temple roofs as its scenery.
    evening
    Dinner of persimmon-leaf sushi and local sake, then a walk under the stone lanterns of Kasuga Taisha.

  7. Day 7

    The quieter Nara

    Nara, Nishinokyō

    morning
    Hōryū-ji, with some of the oldest wooden buildings anywhere, reached before the school buses arrive.
    afternoon
    Tōshōdai-ji and Yakushi-ji, side by side in the rice fields, and a guide who knows what to look up at.
    evening
    A last dinner of Yamato vegetables and handmade noodles, cooked by a couple who grow half of it themselves.

  8. Day 8

    Leaving lightly

    Nara to Kansai Airport

    morning
    An unhurried breakfast, and one last walk to the pond at Sarusawa while the herons are still fishing.
    afternoon
    A private car to the airport, with your bags already checked through.
    evening
    In the air, with a box of tea from Uji somewhere in your luggage.

What’s in it

  • Tōfuku-ji at 6:45, before the gates open
  • A bamboo tea whisk maker in Higashiyama
  • A Nishijin weaver at the loom
  • Shōjin ryōri, temple cooking, in private
  • Nara’s deer park at first light
  • Hōryū-ji before the school groups

The seasons you’ll travel through

In its best months (Mar · Apr · May · Oct · Nov · Dec), this journey passes through 37 of the 72 micro-seasons. A few of them:

All 72 seasons

Where you’ll sleep

Every day above can move. Tell us what you’d change.

Plan with us

Other journeys