Kyoto has 1,600 temples and shrines. This number is both inspiring and paralyzing — it means an extraordinary density of sacred architecture, history, and contemplative space in a single city, but it also means that without a strategy, you’ll spend three days in the most crowded 0.1% of the city while missing everything that makes Kyoto genuinely remarkable.
This guide is for first-timers who want to see the famous sites and the less-famous ones, who want to understand what they’re looking at, and who want to spend at least some time in a space that feels genuinely quiet and contemplative rather than a managed tourist experience.
Temple Etiquette: What to Know Before You Go
Japanese temples and shrines observe protocols that aren’t always well-explained to visitors. Knowing them in advance changes the experience from sightseeing to something closer to genuine participation:
- Remove shoes when entering any building with tatami mats. Look for the genkan (entrance area) where others are removing theirs.
- Purification fountain (temizuya): At the entrance to most shrines, rinse your hands in a prescribed order — left hand, right hand, left hand again using your cupped palm for water.
- Photography: Generally permitted in gardens and exterior spaces. Interior sanctuaries often prohibit photography; signs are usually present but not always in English. When in doubt, don’t.
- Silence: Not legally required, but deeply appreciated. The atmosphere of most temples is created by collective quiet. Match it.
- Offerings: Toss a coin into the offering box (any coin works), bow twice, clap twice, bow once. This is the standard sequence for making a shrine visit; doing it is not a religious commitment, merely a respectful acknowledgment.
Fushimi Inari Taisha: Do It at Dawn
The famous path of ten thousand torii gates is one of Japan’s most photographed sites — and one of its most crowded. The solution is simple but requires commitment: arrive before 6:30 AM. At that hour, the gates are lit by dawn light filtering through the orange vermilion, the crowds are absent, and the mountain path has a quality that no photograph can fully capture.
The full loop to the summit of Mount Inari takes 2-3 hours. Most tourists turn back at Yotsutsuji (the first major lookout, about halfway). Continue to the top: the upper mountain has smaller shrines, moss-covered stone foxes, and the quality of genuine pilgrimage rather than tourist attraction.
The path is open 24 hours. If dawn arrival isn’t possible, the late evening (after 8 PM) offers similar solitude. The gates are lit at night and the experience is completely different — more atmospheric, arguably more beautiful, definitely less crowded.
Kinkaku-ji (The Golden Pavilion): Accept the Crowds, Focus on the Reflection
Kinkaku-ji is unavoidably crowded. This is not a secret and there is no hack to make it otherwise — the site receives five million visitors per year and the viewing path is designed to funnel them past the pavilion in one direction. Accept this, and focus instead on what makes the site genuinely extraordinary: the reflection of the gold-covered pavilion in Kyoko-chi pond is one of the most precise examples of wabi-sabi aesthetics in Japanese garden design. The impermanence of the reflection is the point.
The current pavilion was rebuilt in 1955 after being burned by a monk in 1950 (the inspiration for Mishima’s novel The Temple of the Golden Pavilion). Knowing this history doesn’t diminish the beauty; it adds a layer of meaning to it.
Ryoan-ji: The Most Famous Zen Garden
Ryoan-ji’s rock garden — fifteen stones arranged in raked gravel, positioned so that one stone is always hidden regardless of viewing angle — is the world’s most famous example of karesansui (dry landscape) garden design. Its meaning is deliberately unknowable; the garden was designed to resist interpretation.
Visit mid-week in the morning. Sit at the viewing platform for at least 15 minutes rather than the typical 3 minutes that most visitors spend. The garden’s effect is cumulative — it becomes more interesting and more affecting the longer you sit with it.
Arashiyama: A Half-Day Itinerary
The Arashiyama district in western Kyoto rewards an unhurried half-day. The bamboo grove is magnificent (and crowded; early morning again applies), but the larger area around it is where the real Arashiyama experience lives:
- Tenryu-ji — A UNESCO World Heritage garden with one of the finest borrowed-scenery compositions in Japanese landscape design. The mountains behind form the backdrop for the garden’s central pond.
- Okochi Sanso Villa — The garden of a silent film actor, rarely crowded, with panoramic views over Arashiyama. The admission includes matcha and wagashi (traditional sweets) served in a tea house. One of Kyoto’s best value-for-money experiences.
- Jojakko-ji — A small temple on a hillside, famous for autumn foliage but beautiful in all seasons. The mossy steps and weathered stone lanterns have a melancholy beauty that photographers favor.
Gion District: Not a Temple, but Essential
Gion is Kyoto’s historic geisha district, and while it’s not a religious site, no temple guide is complete without it. The preserved machiya (townhouses) along Hanami-koji and Shimbashi streets are among the best surviving examples of Edo-period urban architecture in Japan.
Walk Hanamikoji in the early evening (around 5:30-6:30 PM) when geiko (Kyoto’s term for geisha) and maiko (apprentice geisha) travel between appointments. Photography is permitted on public streets but please do not block their path, touch them, or shout.
The smaller alleys branching off Shimbashi — particularly Tatsumi-bashi bridge over the Shirakawa canal — offer the most atmospheric views with the fewest crowds. Visit at dusk when the lanterns are lit.
Philosopher's Path: The Walk Between Temples
The Philosopher’s Path is a 2km canal-side walkway between Ginkaku-ji (the Silver Pavilion) and Nanzen-ji, lined with cherry trees. In spring it’s one of Japan’s most famous cherry blossom routes; in other seasons it’s a quiet residential walk with small cafés, independent shops, and the meditative quality that gives it its name (Nishida Kitaro, Japan’s most famous 20th-century philosopher, walked it daily).
Start at Ginkaku-ji and walk south toward Nanzen-ji. The walk takes 45-60 minutes without stops; most people spend 2-3 hours if they stop at the small shrines and cafés along the way.
Nijo Castle: Because Not Everything is a Temple
Kyoto’s temples are Buddhist and Shinto. Nijo Castle is neither — it was the Kyoto residence of the Tokugawa shogunate, built in 1603, and represents an entirely different tradition of Japanese architecture and design. The “nightingale floors” that squeak as you walk (designed as a security measure against ninja assassins) are one of those details that make history feel tactile and immediate.
Planning Your Temple Days
A practical framework for a 3-day Kyoto temple itinerary:
- Day 1 (Eastern Kyoto): Fushimi Inari at dawn, afternoon at Philosopher’s Path (Ginkaku-ji to Nanzen-ji), evening in Gion
- Day 2 (Northwestern Kyoto): Kinkaku-ji, Ryoan-ji, Ninnaji in the morning; afternoon rest or Nijo Castle
- Day 3 (Arashiyama): Bamboo grove at dawn, Tenryu-ji garden, Okochi Sanso Villa, Jojakko-ji
This covers the essential sites without over-scheduling. The best Kyoto experiences happen in the spaces between — the unplanned turn down a narrow lane, the small neighborhood shrine you stumble upon, the moment of quiet in a garden when the crowds briefly thin.