Kyoto Imperial Palace

Entry is free and needs no booking: guided tours in English start at 10:00 and 14:00.

You go through the bag check at the Kiyosho Gate and a one-way route begins, all outdoors: you look at the buildings from outside, one after another, starting with the Shishinden, with the cherry tree on the left and the orange tree on the right. Four times a day a free fifty-minute guided tour sets off, two of them in English.

The residence where the emperors of Japan lived for five hundred years, until the court moved to Tokyo. It stands inside the Kyoto Gyoen park, in the northern part of the centre.

ℹ️ Free admission, no booking: if you have read up on Katsura or the Sentō, you will be expecting the booking procedure, and here it is not needed. Hours 9:00–16:20 from April to August, 9:00–15:50 in September and March, 9:00–15:20 from October to February. Closed on Mondays (or on Tuesday if the Monday is a public holiday), from 28 December to 4 January and on days of imperial ceremonies. Entry is through the Kiyosho Gate, with a bag check; large suitcases, animals, tripods and professional photographic equipment are not allowed. No parking, not even for bicycles. Free guided tours of about fifty minutes: in Japanese at 9:30, 10:30, 13:30 and 14:30; in English and in Chinese at 10:00 and 14:00. There is also an audio app in six languages. ⚠️ It is an hour of open-air courtyards with the buildings closed: for children, it is not much.

🚉 Imadegawa · 9 min walk

Sources: kyoto-gosho.kunaicho.go.jp · ja.kyoto.travel

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