Japan: 7 Days of Heaven – Tokyo-Kyoto Itinerary and Route Map

I have to be honest. Japan blew my mind. Talk about the complete antithesis of everything that is dull in my daily 9to5 life: with Japan you enter a world tradition, respect, courtesy, history, colour and natural beauty. We loved it. And we loved the people.

In fact with everything that Japan has to offer it may just be about one of the most complete destinations in the world. Japan offers huge city skyscrapers, ancient sacred temple sites, great food, stunning mountain ranges and deserted islands, all within a few hundred kilometers of each other.

My wife had already been in Japan for a week by the time I met up with her, due to our conflicting schedules and annual leave. She did 7 days touring in an anticlockwise direction from Tokyo, through Hiroshima among others. We agreed to meet in Kyoto, on the 8th day of her trip. The map below shows my pretty straight forward route.

Travel to Kyoto

It’s about three hours by Shinkansen Bullet Train to Kyoto; if you plan to use the train extensively then it will pay off to buy the 7 day Japan Railways pass (JR Pass) and you csn only do it before you arrive. The train is fantastic and the ride a joy in itself! So punctual that when I arrive, my wife’s waiting for me on the platform, her train arriving 2 minutes before mine, exactly as per the schedule. Remarkable! There’s something pretty cool and exciting about meeting your partner on the other side of the world, and a relief when it all works out.

Kyoto 3 Nights

My wife chose an Air BnB 1 room apartment for 3 nights in Kyoto, in the Higashiyama area, about 15 minutes walk, north east of the station. The apartment was small but perfectly formed and served as a great base. We paid around $100/per night. I was a little worried about finding vegetarian food in Japan, but we actually went to two excellent 100% vegetarian restaurants when we were there (Hale, in Nishiki Market, & Cafe Matsuontoko in Nakanocho) and also a branch of Chibo, which does excellent Okonomiyaki pancakes.)

We spent a full day exploring the temples of East Kyoto, starting at Sanjusangen-Do temple with its 1001 Buddha statues, before walking an hour or so north to Kiomizu-dera temple and its myriaf of alleyways. The cobbled street area known as Sannen-Zaka was great fun, with cafes and food tasting galore and it was joyfully packed out with Sunday visitors. We finished our temple visits with a look at the grand Nanzen-Ji, before finishing it all off with a stroll along the philosophers path, and a bus back to Kyoto.

You can’t go wrong which ever direction you take through East Kyoto; but it can be a long walk. We are fine covering about 20km a day on foot, but even we needed to catch the bus back!

The next day we took a train to Nara, the former capital before Kyoto, but first we stopped at Fushimi-Inari Taisha. This was our favourite of all the sights in Kyoto, 4km of winding paths climbing up to the mountain top, passing through over 10,000 bright orange torri gates. A truly unique and breathtaking sight.

It’s a pretty simple 30 minute ride further on the same train line to Nara. There’s a good high street and market here, and an excellent park lands which you walk through to get to the temple sites, with hundreds of sacred deer roaming throughout. After walking through the stone lanterns of Kasuga Taisha temple, we finished our evening at the excellent Harushika Sake Tasting Brewery!

Mount Koyasan 1 Night

Without doubt Koyasan was the highlight of our trip! The holiest place in Japan, it’s an effort to get there via 5 trains, a cable car and a bus, but well worth it!

We found an excellent guest house with great hosts for around $80 to stay in pods (see review), and had some excellent food, and were fortunate to see the Buddhist monks worshipping in the afternoon at The Garan, and chanting at the 6am ceremony at the Kobo Daishi Mausoleum. It’s just a great town to explore, from its quaint town centre, to the huge and ancient cemetery, and there are some excellent hikes in the hills, including the Women’s pilgrim path. As you’d expect in a town built on Buddhist beliefs, vegetarian food is plentiful.

Tokyo 3 nights

Tokyo lives up to its billing. It’s huge, it’s crowded, it’s tall, and has everything you’d expect of a modern capital city. So there’s plenty to keep you entertained and plenty to see, and all within easy reach thanks to a very comprehensive train and metro network. My wife had already visited when the weather was a little better, and raved about the parks dotted around the town, but the weather took a turn for the worse when we arrived, with the first snow in November for 54 years! So we had to find ways to keep entertained indoors, which involved a free tour of the Government Buildings, a few hours in Calico cat Cafe, and an hour in the Sony Building. The weather cleared the next day, so we just explored one neighbourhood at a time, stopping as and when we saw fit. We stayed at the Grand Fresa in Akasaka, which for around $130/night worked out really well, and about as good value as you get in Tokyo.

Budget

Tokyo has a reputation for being expensive, but you can find good value if you are willing to shop around. The JR Pass has to be bought outside of Japan, and is a must if you’re planning to move around. We paid only $400 return for flights from Melbourne with Jetstar.