Kyoto Without the Crowds: Early Hours and Quiet Temples

At six in the morning, the vermilion gates of Fushimi Inari are almost silent. A shrine keeper sweeps leaves, a crow calls from the cedars, and the only footsteps on the stone path are yours. By ten the same path is shoulder to shoulder. That is Kyoto in a sentence. Seeing Kyoto without the crowds is entirely possible, but it takes three things: an early alarm, the right month and a willingness to skip a few famous names for quieter ones that are just as beautiful.

Go early, and then go late

Kyoto's big sights fill up because most visitors arrive mid-morning, many of them on day trips from Osaka. Beat them by a couple of hours and you see a different city.

Fushimi Inari is open at all hours, so dawn is easy. Even later in the day, the crowds thin sharply once you climb past the Yotsutsuji intersection, about halfway up the mountain. Keep going and you will find small shrines, stone foxes and tea houses with almost nobody around.

The Arashiyama bamboo grove is the other place where timing is everything. At sunrise, the tall green stalks creak in the wind and the light comes through in thin bars. After nine, it becomes a slow-moving queue. Go first thing, then walk north into Sagano while the rest of the city is still having breakfast.

Kiyomizu-dera opens early too, and the steep lanes below it, Sannenzaka and Ninenzaka, are lovely before the shops raise their shutters. Come back after dusk as well. Once the day-trippers leave, the Higashiyama lanes go quiet and the lanterns come on.

Choose the quieter months

Two seasons bring the biggest crowds: cherry blossom, roughly late March into early April, and the autumn leaves, usually mid to late November. Japanese holidays add their own spikes, especially Golden Week at the turn of April and May, and the New Year period.

The quiet times are the ones people are nervous about:

• January and February, once New Year is over. Cold, clear and often the calmest time of year. A dusting of snow on a temple roof is something you will remember for years.
• Early December, after the last of the leaves. Prices and crowds ease, and some maples hang on longer than you expect.
• June, the rainy season. The moss gardens are at their greenest, and rain on a temple veranda is its own kind of beautiful.
• Midsummer weekdays, if you can handle the heat. Very humid, but the early mornings are pleasant.

Kyoto is a city of small rooms and long silences. Give it the hours when it is quiet.

The quieter temples worth your time

Kyoto has well over a thousand temples. A handful get most of the visitors. These ones get far fewer, and none of them feel like second best.

Gio-ji and Otagi Nenbutsu-ji, in Sagano

A short walk north of the bamboo grove, Gio-ji is a tiny thatched temple with a garden that is almost entirely moss under a canopy of maples. Further up the valley, Otagi Nenbutsu-ji has more than a thousand small stone figures, each carved by an amateur and each with its own face. Some are laughing, one holds a camera, and many are softened with moss. It is gentle and a little funny, which is rare in a temple.

The sub-temples of Daitoku-ji

In the north of the city, Daitoku-ji is a walled complex of Zen sub-temples. Only a few open to the public at any time, which keeps numbers low. Daisen-in has one of the finest dry gardens in Japan, and Koto-in has a long approach of maples that is quietly perfect. Opening varies, so check on the day.

Ohara, in the hills

About an hour north by bus, Ohara is a farming village with two lovely temples. Sanzen-in has moss gardens and small stone jizo figures half buried in green. At Hosen-in, you sit on tatami with matcha and a sweet and look out through the open walls at a pine tree said to be centuries old. Bring a jacket; it is cooler up here.

Honen-in and Shisen-do

Near the Philosopher's Path, Honen-in sits behind a thatched gate, with raked sand mounds by the entrance that the monks reshape through the year. Further north, Shisen-do was the home of a seventeenth-century poet and scholar, and its raked white garden and azaleas are best enjoyed sitting still on the veranda.

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Good to know

• Stay in Kyoto, not Osaka. Being on the spot at dawn and after dark changes everything.
• Walk and take trains. City buses can be slow and full. The subway, the Keihan line and the little Randen tram to Arashiyama often beat them.
• Respect private lanes. Parts of Gion are residential and some lanes are now closed to visitors. Follow the signs and never photograph geiko or maiko without permission.
• Some temples need a reservation, including the famous moss temple, Saiho-ji. Check before you go.
• Carry cash and a small bag. Many temples charge a modest entry fee and you will take your shoes off often.

The famous places are famous for good reasons. See one or two of them at dawn, then spend the rest of your days in the smaller temples, where the city still feels like it belongs to the people who live there.