Kanabiki Falls

A forty-metre drop, the only waterfall in Kyoto Prefecture among Japan's hundred.

The water falls forty metres over a face twenty metres wide, and halfway down it splits into two streams that are called male and female here. Further downstream two more fall, the ‘white dragon’ and the ‘reclining dragon’. In the cold months you stand underneath it: this is where *takigyō*, penance under the waterfall, is practised, in a white robe and in water at fifteen degrees.

A waterfall about forty metres high and about twenty wide, the only one in Kyoto Prefecture included in the national list of the hundred waterfalls of Japan. It has a full flow all year round. The stream splits in two, called 男滝 and 女滝; further downstream are the 白龍 and 臥龍 falls.

ℹ️ Always accessible and free. By bus it is eleven minutes from Miyazu Station. ⚠️ The road is the limit: it is narrow and passing another car is difficult, so much so that the tourist office openly recommends coming by bicycle from the michi-no-eki (the roadside station, with a car park and shops), from which it is about ten minutes. ⚠️ Sources conflict on the practice under the waterfall: the official area page offers it from October to March and only by booking; one source in the batch instead gave it as a guided experience at ¥10,000 with an interpreter and an electric bicycle. The two can coexist (a private operator within a seasonal window), but the official version is October–March, by booking.

🚉 Miyamura · 15 min walk

Sources: uminokyoto.jp

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