Luxury Kyoto tours for 2027

Kyoto is a grid of streets between three ranges of wooded hills, and your Tour Director plans each day around one or two of its quarters, with a car waiting between them.

• Higashiyama and Gion

  The eastern hills hold the loveliest lanes in the city: Kiyomizu-dera on its wooden stage above the trees, the stone-paved slopes of Sannenzaka and Ninenzaka, and Gion below, where the teahouses of Hanamikoji stand behind latticed fronts and the Shirakawa canal runs under willows. When the lanterns are lit in the evening, the street belongs to the geiko and maiko on their way to the evening's engagements.

• Nanzen-ji and the Philosopher's Path

  North of Gion, Nanzen-ji stands at the foot of the hills with a red-brick aqueduct of the Meiji era running through its grounds. From it a path of two kilometres follows a canal north to Ginkaku-ji, the Silver Pavilion, which was never silvered, with its raked sand sea and a cone of sand made for watching the moon.

• Arashiyama

  On the western edge of the city the Togetsukyo bridge crosses the Hozu River beneath wooded hills, the bamboo grove rises behind Tenryu-ji, and the temple's garden, laid out by the monk Muso Soseki in the fourteenth century, borrows the mountains for its view.

• Northern Kyoto

  The Golden Pavilion of Kinkaku-ji, mirrored in its pond; Ryoan-ji, whose fifteen stones can never all be seen at once; and Daitoku-ji, a walled precinct of Zen sub-temples. Kamishichiken, the oldest geiko district in Kyoto, lies beside the shrine of Kitano Tenmangu.

• The centre

  Nishiki Market, a covered street of more than a hundred stalls selling pickles, yuba, knives and tea; Nijo Castle, whose floors were laid to sing like nightingales; the Imperial Palace in its park of more than sixty hectares; and Pontocho, a lane of dining rooms with wooden platforms built out over the Kamo River.

• Southern Kyoto and Fushimi

  Fushimi Inari Taisha, its vermilion torii climbing the slopes of Mount Inari, and Tofuku-ji, where the Tsutenkyo bridge crosses a ravine of maples. Further south the sake breweries of Fushimi draw on the soft spring water beneath the district, as they have for some four hundred years.

• An evening with geiko and maiko

  Dinner in a private room of an ochaya in Gion, with the dances, the songs and the conversation of the geiko and maiko who are its guests of honour: an evening opened only by introduction, and one we arrange.

• Tea, made for you

  A tea ceremony in a temple tea room or a master's own house, slow and explained, from the cleaning of the bowl to the last bow.

• Kaiseki at its source

  Kyoto is the home of kaiseki, the seasonal multi-course meal of Japan, and its Michelin-starred kitchens are among the most accomplished in the country; a dinner at one is the evening many guests remember longest.

• The craftspeople

  A morning in the workshop of a Nishijin weaver, a Kiyomizu potter or a maker of lacquer, in the hands of people whose families have practised the craft for generations.

• The sake of Fushimi

  A tasting at a brewery in Fushimi, where the soft spring water beneath the district has made sake for some four hundred years, poured by the brewer and matched to the season's dishes.

Spring

The great weeping cherry of Maruyama Park, lit after dark, and the blossom along the stone banks of the Shirakawa canal and through the Imperial Palace park, where The Classic Cherry Blossom Tour of Japan sits down to its hanami picnic. The tour runs from 30 March to 10 April 2027.

Summer

July is the month of the Gion Matsuri, when the great wooden floats of the old merchant quarters are drawn through the centre of the city, and dinner moves out over the water, onto the platforms above the Kamo River and the stream at Kibune.

Autumn

The maples of Tofuku-ji turn beneath the Tsutenkyo bridge, and Eikando and Nanzen-ji colour against the eastern hills.

Winter

The temples are quiet, the dry gardens sharp in the low light, and on the mornings it snows the Golden Pavilion stands above its pond in white and gold.

How long to stay

Three nights is the least we would give Kyoto on a first journey, and four or five lets the city unfold at an easy pace, with a day for Nara or Uji and an evening in Gion.

Getting there

By Shinkansen from Tokyo in a little over two hours, in first class on our journeys. From Kansai International Airport a private car takes about ninety minutes, and Osaka is fifteen minutes away.

Pairs well with

Kyoto sits at the centre of most journeys in western Japan: Nara and Uji are easy days out, Osaka is close at hand for the last nights, and Kinosaki Onsen, Koyasan and Kanazawa each make a natural next stop.NaraUjiOsakaKinosaki OnsenKoyasanKanazawaTokyo