Tōfuku-ji

photo by baggio4ever · CC BY 3.0

From 14 November the bridge opens at 8:30 and the ticket rises from ¥600 to ¥1,000.

At half past eight in the morning, in November, there is already a queue at the ticket desk. You walk out onto the Tsūtenkyō, a covered bridge spanning a gorge: below, the maples reach the height of the parapet. The second ticket is for another garden, on the other side, where the moss is laid out in a chequerboard between stone slabs.

A large Zen complex in south-east Kyoto; Zen is the Buddhist school centred on seated meditation. The Tsūtenkyō is a covered bridge that crosses the gorge of maples inside the grounds. The second garden, the one around the main buildings, dates from the twentieth century and is not an ancient garden: it lays out moss in a chequerboard with stone slabs.

ℹ️ There are two separate tickets, the bridge and the garden, and you need a good two hours for both. Hours 9:00–16:00 from April to 13 November, closing at 16:30; from 7 December to 31 March 9:00–15:30, closing at 16:00. ⚠️ In the red-leaf window, from 14 November to 6 December, the bridge opens at 8:30, costs ¥1,000 instead of ¥600, and there is a queue for tickets even before nine. The garden goes from ¥500 to ¥600 from 1 November 2026. ⚠️ In summer the moss dries out. Closing days not stated.

🚉 Tofukuji · 11 min walk

Sources: tofukuji.jp

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