Katsura Rikyu

photo by alonfloc · CC BY 3.0

photo by ☆Tomoaki Ueda☆ · CC BY 3.0

Visits only by booking, on a one-hour guided tour: you do not walk around on your own.

It is a property of the imperial family, managed by the Imperial Household Agency, and not a temple: you can only get in by booking a guided tour slot online (in Japanese or in English), lasting about 60 minutes, with no chance to wander freely. The garden, built around a pond with islands and bridges, is designed to be discovered in sequence as you walk, with each view hidden from the next until the last step: a principle of calculated surprise that made the place a reference point for twentieth-century Japanese architecture.

Built from 1615 onwards for Prince Toshihito, the emperor's brother, and enlarged by his son in the second half of the seventeenth century. It is not one of Kyoto's seventeen UNESCO sites (it is an active imperial property, not a temple), but it is commonly counted, together with the garden of Ryōan-ji, among the high points of the traditional Japanese garden.

ℹ️ Guided tours several times a day, at fixed times (9:00, 10:00, 11:00, 12:00, 13:00, 14:00, 15:00, 16:00 in Japanese; dedicated times for English). Booking online on the Imperial Household Agency website. Tickets 1,000 yen for those aged 18 and over, free for under-18s.

🚉 Katsura · 15 min walk

Sources: sankan.kunaicho.go.jp · kunaicho.go.jp

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