www.expedia.com/Kyoto-and-vicinity.d6131486.Destination-Travel-Guides Kyoto lies in Western Honshu, Japan’s main island. The imperial capital for over 1,000 years, Kyoto is widely considered Japan’s most beautiful city. Emerging from ultra-modern Kyoto Station, the city’s busy downtown area can come as a shock. Yet old Kyoto is never far away. Just to the east is Gion, where you’ll catch glimpses of the geisha, the very embodiment of old Kyoto. Further east, amid narrow alleyways like Ishibe Koji, you’ll find traditional Kyoto-style houses and some of the city’s finest Ryokan. Just a rickshaw ride away, are the traffic-free streets of Sannen-zaka and Ninen-zaka, where teahouses line the routes to nearby hilltop temples. Kyoto is known as “the city of 10,000 shrines”. There are places of spacious austerity, such as the Heian Shrine, and intimate places, such as the Shorenin Temple. There are temples dominated by stone, such as the Kiyomizadera, and others, such as Tofukuji, which are crafted from ancient timbers. Kodai Temple features a raked gravel garden, which represents the infinite ocean, while Nanzenji, sits within the shade of a 19th- century aqueduct. Nothing quite compares to Fushimi Inari-taisha, which spans an entire mountainside and features a path lined with 10,000 tori gates. You’ll find old Kyoto in the palace grounds of Nijo Castle, and in the fleeting cherry blossom season. It resides in the ethereal light of the Bamboo Forest of Arashiyama and in the Zen-like calm of the city’s monkeys. And it can certainly be found as evening falls and the city lights up like a living lantern.

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