Kyoto Temples: Which to Visit, Ticket Prices and When to Go

There are roughly 1,600 Buddhist temples in Kyoto. You are going to see perhaps six of them, and which six you pick will decide whether you remember the city as a place of extraordinary quiet or as a queue that moved slowly past a gold building.

The short version: Kiyomizu-dera and Kinkaku-ji are worth the crowds if you go at opening time, Fushimi Inari is free and best at dawn, and Nijo Castle is a palace rather than a temple and better than both. Nara, forty-five minutes away, holds the oldest wooden buildings on earth and a park full of deer. Admission to most Kyoto temples runs ¥400 to ¥600.

Higashi Honganji Temple

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Why Kyoto has so many temples

Kyoto was Japan's capital from 794 until 1868, which gave it a thousand years of emperors, court nobles, and shoguns who all needed somewhere to be buried, to pray, and to display their money. Temples were founded as family mortuary chapels, as political statements, and as retirement homes for abdicated emperors.

The city was also spared the firebombing that flattened most Japanese cities in 1945, so what survived earthquakes and civil wars is still standing. Alongside the temples there are around 400 Shinto shrines, and seventeen sites in and around the city hold UNESCO World Heritage listing collectively.

What Kyoto temples cost

Most charge a modest entry fee, and a few of the best charge nothing.

• Kinkaku-ji: ¥500 adults, ¥300 school students

• Kiyomizu-dera: ¥400

• Nijo Castle: ¥800 for the grounds, ¥1,300 including Ninomaru Palace

• Fushimi Inari Taisha: free, open around the clock

• Todai-ji, Nara: ¥800 per hall for ages 13 and over, ¥400 for ages 6 to 12

• Horyu-ji, Nara: ¥1,500

• Kofuku-ji, Nara: ¥700 for the National Treasure Museum, ¥300 more for the Eastern Golden Hall

Budget ¥2,000 to ¥3,000 a day for admissions if you are visiting four or five paid sites. Special fall and spring openings sometimes carry an extra charge, and several temples run separate fees per building.

Kiyomizu-dera

Kiyomizu-dera Temple

Image Credit: David Emrich

the hillside temple at Kiyomizu is the one to see first, and the one most people get wrong by arriving at eleven.

Founded in 778, the temple hangs off the hillside on a platform of 168 pillars assembled without a single nail. The main hall stands thirteen meters above the slope, which is where the Japanese expression about jumping off the Kiyomizu stage comes from, since people once did exactly that in the belief that surviving the fall granted a wish.

Below the main hall, the Otowa waterfall splits into three streams that visitors drink from with long-handled cups. Each stream is said to grant something different: longevity, success, or love. Drinking from all three is considered greedy.

The approach lanes, Sannenzaka and Ninenzaka, are as much of the experience as the temple, and they are shoulder to shoulder from mid-morning. Arrive at 06:00, when the grounds open, and you will have the platform nearly to yourself. The temple also runs evening illuminations in spring and fall, staying open to 21:30.

Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Pavilion

Kinkakuji Temple

Kinkaku-ji is a single building that people cross the world to photograph, and the visit takes twenty minutes because you follow a one-way path and cannot go inside.

The top two floors are covered in gold leaf, and the reflection in the pond in front is the reason for the crowd. Built in 1397 as a retirement villa for the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, it became a temple after his death.

What almost nobody mentions on the signage: the building is a 1955 reconstruction. A novice monk burned the original down in 1950, an event Yukio Mishima turned into a novel. The replacement used more gold leaf than the original ever had.

Go at opening or in the last hour. In snow it is genuinely worth rearranging a trip for. Our guide to Kinkaku-ji and the Golden Pavilion has the access details.

Fushimi Inari Taisha

Fushimi Inari Taisha

Image Credit: Luca Florio

the Fushimi Inari gate path is a Shinto shrine rather than a temple, it is free, and it never closes. Those three facts make it the best thing in Kyoto for anyone willing to get up early.

Around 10,000 vermilion torii gates line a path up Mount Inari. Each was donated by a business, with the company's name and the date carved into the back of the post, which is why the gates look uniform from the front and read like a directory from behind.

The full circuit to the summit and back takes two to three hours and climbs about 230 meters. Most visitors turn around at the Yotsutsuji intersection, roughly forty-five minutes up, where the view opens over the city. Past that point the crowds vanish almost entirely.

Go at 06:00 or after 18:00. The gates are lit at night, the path is safe, and the difference between dawn and midday here is the difference between a pilgrimage and a photo queue.

Nijo Castle

Nijo Castle

Image Credit: Eleonora Albasi

Nijo Castle was built in 1603 for the first Tokugawa shogun and is the place where, 265 years later, the last one handed power back to the emperor. The building witnessed the start and the end of the shogunate.

Ninomaru Palace is the reason to pay the higher ticket. You walk through the actual audience chambers, past screens painted with tigers meant to intimidate visiting lords, and the rooms get progressively more restricted as you move inward.

The floors sing. Nightingale floors were built with nails and clamps that squeak underfoot, a deliberate alarm system against intruders. You cannot cross them silently no matter how carefully you step, which visitors invariably try.

Open 08:45 to 17:00, closed Tuesdays in January, July, August, and December.

Nara: older than Kyoto

Nara was Japan's capital before Kyoto, from 710 to 794, and its temples are correspondingly older and larger. It sits forty-five minutes from Kyoto by train and makes a straightforward day trip. Our Nara guide covers the wider city.

Todai-ji

Nara Park

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Todai-ji's Great Buddha Hall is among the largest wooden buildings in the world, and the current version is a 1709 reconstruction at two-thirds the width of the original. Inside sits a bronze Buddha fifteen meters high, cast in 752 using so much copper that it nearly bankrupted the country.

Behind one pillar there is a hole the size of the Buddha's nostril. Children squeeze through it for luck, and a steady number of adults get stuck trying.

Nara Park and the deer

Nara Deer

Image Credit: Alessio Ferretti

Over a thousand sika deer live in Nara Park, protected for centuries as messengers of the gods. Vendors sell shika senbei crackers for around ¥200, and the deer bow for them, which is a learned behavior rather than an ancient courtesy.

They are wild animals and they bite, particularly during the fall rut when the bucks have antlers. Hold the crackers out of sight until you are ready, feed quickly, and show empty hands when you are finished.

Horyu-ji

Horyu-ji Temple

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Horyu-ji was founded in 607 by Prince Shotoku, and its main hall is generally accepted as the oldest surviving wooden building anywhere in the world. The five-story pagoda beside it contains a central pillar felled, according to tree-ring dating, in 594.

It sits outside Nara city and takes a separate train and bus, which is why most day-trippers skip it. That is also why it is quiet. If you care about architecture rather than atmosphere, this is the most important site in either city.

Can you do Kyoto and Nara in one day?

You can, and it is a compromise. Nara's main sights cluster in one walkable park, so four hours covers Todai-ji, Kofuku-ji, Kasuga Taisha, and the deer comfortably. Adding that to a Kyoto day means seeing two or three Kyoto temples at most.

A better split, if you have the time, is a full day in Nara and two or three in Kyoto. If you only have one day for both, start in Nara at 08:00, return to Kyoto by 14:00, and spend the late afternoon at Fushimi Inari, which improves as the light goes.

Temple etiquette

Tea Ceremony

Image Credit: Roméo A

At a Buddhist temple, bow slightly at the gate, and if there is an incense burner, waft the smoke toward yourself before entering the hall. At a Shinto shrine, rinse your hands and mouth at the water basin, then bow twice, clap twice, and bow once at the offering box.

Shoes come off where you see a step up and a rack. Photography is usually fine outdoors and often banned inside halls, and the signs are clear. Speak quietly in the halls, since these are working religious buildings and people are praying in them.

Collecting goshuin, the hand-brushed temple seals, costs ¥300 to ¥500 apiece. Buy the book at your first temple and present it at the office rather than handing over loose paper.

When to go

Temple and Lanterns

Image Credit: Ayumi kubo

Cherry blossom season in early April and the fall colors in the second half of November are the two peaks, and both are spectacular and extremely crowded. Our guide to cherry blossom timing and spots covers how to plan around the bloom.

May, early June, and late September are the underrated windows: mild weather, everything open, and a fraction of the crowds. August is hot and humid enough to shorten any temple day. Winter is cold, quiet, and occasionally gives you Kinkaku-ji under snow.

Whatever the season, the single most effective tactic is time of day. Temples open between 06:00 and 09:00, and the first ninety minutes are worth more than the rest of the day combined.

Samurai

Image Credit: Ryunosuke Kikuno

Planning your temple days

Three temples a day is the honest maximum before they blur together. Group them geographically: Kiyomizu-dera with the Higashiyama lanes and Ginkaku-ji along the Philosopher's Path, Kinkaku-ji with Ryoan-ji and Ninna-ji in the northwest, Fushimi Inari on its own at either end of a day.

Kyoto's buses are slow and crowded, and the subway does not reach most temples. Taxis between clusters are often the better use of an afternoon, and the city is flat enough to cycle.

For a wider view of what else is worth seeing, our roundup of Japan's most significant temples and shrines goes beyond the Kansai region.

A route like Tokyo and Kyoto across two weeks leaves enough days to see these properly rather than at a run.

There is far more than six temples here, and the wider Kyoto area rewards anyone who stays long enough to find the empty ones.