Want to travel Osaka & Kyoto this year

Hi Pounamk,

Kyoto and Osaka are just a short train journey from each other so you can pretty much stay at one place and visit the other daily. We've sometimes stayed at an Airbnb in Kyoto and visited Osaka for day trips to Dotonbori, Osaka Castle and Osaka Aquarium.

The great thing about Kyoto is that it has so many beautiful temples and places to see and many of them are close together which means even in one day you can visit so many wonderful sites.

One of my favourite places to visit is Arashiyama, which can be reached by bus or train from Kyoto station. It is a beautiful little town bustling with tourists and local visitors. It is nestled among the hills along the Katsura (Oi) River. There are so many places to eat and buy souvenirs and crafts and the train station is right in the centre. The town is really cute. A 5 minute walk from the train station brings you to the Togetsukyo Bridge which flows over the Katsura River. Here the views are beautiful and you take a walk all along the river bank where there are parks and even boat rides. It is such a nice outdoor area to spend some time. In the Autumn the weather will be perfect.

From the Togetsukyo Bridge you can walk back along the small main road a couple of hundred metres you will find a road off to the left that leads to the ancient Tenryu-ji Temple complex with it's beautiful gardens and the bamboo forest. And if you continue along this route you will see more ancient temples, old tea houses and thousands of stone Buddhist carvings at the Nenbutsu-ji Temple.

This whole area is really very beautiful.

Even the famous Kinkaku-ji Temple or Golden Shrine is on route to Arashiyama from Kyoto. You can take a bus from Kyoto Station and make a stop at Kinkaku-ji Temple before arriving at Arashiyama and then take the train back to Kyoto City.

We also like visiting Gion in old Kyoto. The place really is nice with a big main street full of wonderful stores selling food, crafts and souvenirs, and with lots of small side streets lined with old traditional buildings. You will really get a feeling of being in "old" Japan. You will probably see girls in traditional Geisha dress with full make up, and these are mostly tourists who pay for this experience. It's great to wander around Gion as you will see many people wearing traditional clothes.

These are just two of our favourite places in Kyoto. A third favourite would be the Fushimi Inari Shrine and it's famous vermillion coloured Torii Gates, but there are so many more interesting places to see, most of which you can easily get information from online or from guidebooks.

I'm sure you are going to have an absolutely amazing time.

Regards,
Hansson