Your Kyoto Honeymoon, Planned to Perfection

If arriving from Tokyo, the Shinkansen Nozomi takes 2 hours 15 minutes to Kyoto Station — the fastest and most comfortable 280km/h train journey in the world. Check into your hotel or ryokan and walk immediately to Gion — Kyoto's geisha district, the most visually preserved traditional neighborhood in Japan. The section of Hanamikoji Street south of Shijo Avenue is lined with teahouses and ochaya (geisha entertainment houses) in pristine wooden machiya facades. Between 5-7pm, geiko (fully qualified geisha) and maiko (apprentice geisha) can be seen traveling between engagements in their extraordinary formal kimono — a sight that stops everyone who sees it. Do not take flash photographs or block their path. Dinner at a restaurant in Gion for first kaiseki: a multi-course succession of small, perfectly executed dishes that is the world's most refined expression of Japanese seasonal cooking.

• ✦ Shinkansen from Tokyo — 2h15m on the world's smoothest bullet train
• ✦ Gion's Hanamikoji Street — traditional teahouse facades
• ✦ Geiko and maiko sightings at dusk (5-7pm)
• ✦ First kaiseki dinner in a Gion restaurant

Fushimi Inari Taisha is one of Japan's most extraordinary places — a Shinto shrine at the southern edge of Kyoto where 10,000 vermilion torii gates create covered tunnels winding 4km through the forested mountain behind. The gates glow an extraordinary color in morning and evening light. The walk to the summit (233 meters) takes about 2 hours each way; most people turn around at the Yotsutsuji intersection (45 minutes up) which already offers dramatic views. Go at 6am to experience the gates in misty morning silence before the crowds arrive; by 10am the lower gates are extremely busy. The shrine is free and open 24 hours. After Fushimi Inari, spend the afternoon in the Fushimi sake district just north — the area around the Fushimi Momoyama castle ruins has a dozen sake breweries and tasting rooms open to visitors: Gekkeikan, Kizakura, and Tsuki no Katsura for sparkling sake.

• ✦ Fushimi Inari at 6am — 10,000 torii gates in morning mist
• ✦ Mountain walk through the tunnels of vermilion gates
• ✦ Fushimi sake district — sake tasting in the brewing heartland
• ✦ Gekkeikan Okura Sake Museum

Arashiyama, in western Kyoto at the base of the Arashiyama mountains, has three defining experiences: the bamboo grove of Sagano, the Tenryu-ji Zen garden, and the Togetsukyo Bridge over the Hozu River with the mountains behind. The bamboo grove is the most photographed place in Kyoto — arrive at 7am before the crowds and the experience of walking through walls of bamboo that block the sky is extraordinary; by 9am the path is crowded. Tenryu-ji, a 14th-century Zen temple, has the finest garden in Arashiyama: a large pond reflecting the Arashiyama mountains in the background, with carefully composed stone arrangements and meticulously maintained trees around the water's edge. The monkey park on the mountain above Arashiyama (Iwatayama) has 120 Japanese macaques with views over Kyoto. Boat ride on the Hozu River or a traditional cormorant fishing experience (ukai) in the evening if in season.

• ✦ Arashiyama bamboo grove at 7am — walls of green and sky
• ✦ Tenryu-ji Zen garden — the mountain reflected in the pond
• ✦ Togetsukyo Bridge over the Hozu River
• ✦ Ukai cormorant fishing on the Hozu River (evening, seasonal)

Nishiki Market is Kyoto's covered food market — a 400-meter arcade of 100+ specialty stalls selling every ingredient of Kyoto cuisine: yuba (tofu skin), fresh tofu, pickled vegetables, knife shops, fan sellers, and the most extraordinary selection of Japanese kitchen tools outside Tokyo. The tsukemono (pickled vegetables) shops are extraordinarily beautiful — the colors and arrangements of pickled burdock, eggplant, chrysanthemum, and lotus are almost too perfect to eat. Nijo Castle, built in 1603 as the Kyoto residence of the first Tokugawa shogun, has nightingale floors (specifically designed to squeak when walked on, alerting guards to intruders) and the most complete surviving example of Momoyama-period shoin architecture and Kano school paintings. The Imperial Palace in its park (Gyoen) is free to enter; the palace buildings can be toured.

• ✦ Nishiki Market — Kyoto's 400-meter covered kitchen and food arcade
• ✦ Nijo Castle nightingale floors and Kano school paintings
• ✦ Imperial Palace and the Kyoto Gyoen National Garden
• ✦ Pontocho alley lunch — Kyoto's most atmospheric restaurant lane

The Philosopher's Path (Tetsugaku no Michi) is a 2km canal-side footpath through the Higashiyama hills named after philosopher Nishida Kitaro who walked it daily. In spring it's lined with cherry blossoms; in autumn with maples; in winter the stone-edged canal freezes and the frozen channel catches the December light. The path connects several of Kyoto's most important temples: Eikan-do (Zenrin-ji), with its extraordinary collection of Buddhist art; Nanzen-ji, the headquarters of the Rinzai Zen sect with its subtemples and a 19th-century brick aqueduct carrying water from Lake Biwa; and the extraordinary moss-covered stairways of Ginkaku-ji (the Silver Pavilion), Kyoto's most refined garden composition. Walk the three-tiered Higashiyama hills neighborhood below the temple path for the best-preserved traditional townscape in Kyoto.

• ✦ Philosopher's Path — 2km canal footpath through the Higashiyama hills
• ✦ Nanzen-ji — Rinzai headquarters with red maple and brick aqueduct
• ✦ Ginkaku-ji Silver Pavilion and its famous sand garden
• ✦ Higashiyama traditional townscape and Sannenzaka stone steps

Nara is 45 minutes south of Kyoto by Kintetsu express train and constitutes one of the best half-day additions to any Kyoto visit. Nara Park, the great urban park surrounding the 8th-century capital's monuments, is inhabited by 1,200 freely roaming sika deer — considered sacred since 768 AD when a god is said to have arrived on a white deer. The deer bow to visitors for shika senbei (special deer crackers sold at park stalls) and are remarkably tame. Tōdai-ji, the great Buddhist temple in the park, houses the Daibutsu (Great Buddha) — a 15-meter bronze figure of Vairochana Buddha that is the largest bronze statue in the world, housed in the largest wooden building on earth (Daibutsuden Hall). The Kasuga Taisha shrine, with its 2,000 stone lanterns, is beautiful in any season but extraordinary during the lantern festivals. Return to Kyoto for a final Gion evening.

• ✦ Nara Park — 1,200 sacred deer roaming freely
• ✦ Tōdai-ji Great Buddha Hall — largest wooden building on earth
• ✦ Daibutsu — 15-meter bronze Buddha, largest in the world
• ✦ Kasuga Taisha shrine and 2,000 stone lanterns

Kyoto rewards early morning more than any city in Japan. Before departure, walk one more time to whichever temple became your favorite — the moss garden of Saiho-ji (book weeks ahead), the rock garden of Ryoan-ji at 8am when it's quiet, or simply the neighborhood around your ryokan in the specific quality of early Kyoto morning light. The shinkansen to Osaka airport (Kansai International, KIX) takes 75 minutes; Itami Airport is 45 minutes by Haruka Express. Buy matcha sweets from Nakamura Tokichi in Uji, handmade tofu from Morika Tofu in Kawaramachi, and wagashi from Toraya — the imperial confectioner since the 16th century, whose sweets are so beautiful they should be framed rather than eaten. Kyoto will have entered you in a way that takes weeks to fully feel.

• ✦ Early morning at your favorite Kyoto temple before departure
• ✦ Toraya wagashi — imperial confectioner since the 16th century
• ✦ Shinkansen to Kansai Airport for international departure