Kyoto is a lovely city. It has lots of temples and is the number one destination for Autumn colours in Japan. Although its not a very big city but with so many temples to visit, it’s not an easy one to plan. Each temple has gardens which show the autumn colours in full glory and if you plan to visit all of them then you will need at least 2 weeks and you will get bored. But then challenge is that there is no such list of best temples to cover…there are just so many best temples !! Another point to note is that many temples have night illumination, so you may end up visiting a temple twice :). My approach was to pick the big temples and then visit nearby temples as time permits and i had to rely on google my maps for it.
Kyoto is a good city to cover on a bicycle, however to cover some far off places a bus or a train ride will be needed.
Kyoto nightlife is quite lacklustre and almost non existent even though it has a university. There are some nice pubs but i didn’t like the atmosphere.
There are many side trips which one can make from Kyoto to Nara, Arashiyama, Osaka, Himeji. I covered all of them 🙂
For a traveller who loves to click photos, Kyoto is a paradise as it has so many temples which provide you great views with Autumn and Spring colours. But then it gets over crowded with tourists which makes it difficult to walk and its gets difficult to get a clear view while clicking photos which really spoils the situation. I faced this at all the temples.
As much as i loved Kyoto, too many tourists was a spoiler.