You know when you leave a destination without having visited every attraction, and you say “oh well, it’s something to come back for!” – well I must have embraced this mindset totally during my last two visits to Kyoto. The amount of headline tourist sites I missed out on last time astounded me. What had I been doing? While I remain baffled about that, it does mean my visit this time was top tier. Each time I thought “this is the most beautiful temple/shrine/garden I’ve ever seen”… I’d go to one even better an hour later. Kyoto is a treasure trove of cultural sites, incredible architecture and authentic Japanese experiences. I was completely delighted by my visit here, and it’s definitely one of the best cities I went to in my trip across Japan.

Being the former capital and spared a lot of the bombing that decimated the rest of the country during WWII, Kyoto has retained many of its religious and spiritual sites. I don’t know how many temples and shrines there are here, but there’s certainly more than you could hope to visit in a 5 day trip. It’s one of those places where you can point your camera in any direction and the results will be great. My photos on this page being evidence of that. I took almost 500 photos while here… I was tempted to split this post into two so that I could post even more of them.

Something I found curious is why some temples seem to be famous, popular and completely overrun by tourists while others, that are just as incredible, are devoid of people and remain totally obscure. As someone who ironically despises other tourists, I tried to spend as much time in the obscure ones as possible. You’ll see from my photos why doing so was worth the effort.

One of the absolute highlights for me was visiting Murin-an, a 19th century villa, teahouse and garden that I came across in my research. The building itself was exquisite, and I was able to enjoy a local craft beer and small sweet while admiring the view. While sat there, I got talking with two girls next to me. We had a lovely conversation in a mixture of Japanese and English for about 45 minutes. I won’t forget how one of them, Miho, said “I want to find a handsome and rich man to marry” – you and me both sister.

Rather than talk about every temple individually (I can hear your sigh of relief from here), I’ll just mention my favourite one; Eikan-dō (Zenrin-ji) Temple. I learnt of the place thanks to a post on Instagram and made the journey here to see the Garyū-rō, a wooden spiral staircase supposedly in the shape of a dragon that captivated me for some reason. I was completely enamoured by the architectural design of the place; the elegant paper screens, verandas overlooking tranquil gardens and views of the city from the three storied pagoda. I felt transported to another time and was just in heaven. It wasn’t the largest, grandest or most famous temple I went to, but for me, it was the best.

So that one was my favourite, but then there are the others…

Aside from touring temples and sampling shrines, I also spent some time in Kyoto city proper, which is just as modern and bustling as any large Japanese city. I made the acquaintance of a couple of locals and enjoyed some great food and even visited a sake bar which was a cool experience!

Due to a festival in my next destination that was happening that weekend, I moved on from Kyoto after 5 days – but I could have easily stayed there longer. As mentioned, there are countless temples and sites worth seeing; you can’t do it all in one trip. Or three trips for that matter. Oh well. It’s something to come back for!