Living quarters with painted walls, opening onto a garden of raked gravel.
It is a temple headed for centuries by imperial princes, and you can tell from how it is built: instead of prayer halls there are living quarters, with painted sliding walls, opening onto a dry landscape garden of raked gravel with two islands of stone and moss. It stands at the end of a road that leads nowhere else, and you can feel it.
It is a *monzeki*, that is, a temple whose leadership was entrusted for centuries to princes of the imperial family; its full name is Manshu-in Monzeki. It stands in the Ichijōji quarter, on the side of the hill east of Kyoto, higher up than all the other temples in the area.
ℹ️ ¥800. Open 9:00–17:00, last admission at 16:30. ⚠️ It is the highest and most isolated of the Ichijōji group: from the Eizan Railway it is an uphill walk of about twenty minutes, and buses are infrequent. On the other hand it has fifty free parking spaces, for cars only, which nobody else around here has.
🚉 Ichijoji · 23 min walk
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