Discover a Quiet and Peaceful side of Kyoto
Daikaku-ji Temple, located in Ukyo-ku, Kyoto City, was originally a detached palace built by Emperor Saga in the early Heian period.
Later converted into a temple, it is a prestigious monzeki temple with ties to the imperial family.
It is also famous as the birthplace of ikebana (Saga-goryu school) and for having Japan’s oldest artificial forest pond (Osawa Pond).
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Following the opening of the Lake Biwa Canal during the Meiji era, many residences with gardens incorporating water from the canal were built around Nanzenji Temple. Murin-an is one such example. It was the villa of Yamagata Aritomo, a politician of the Meiji and Taisho periods, and is considered a masterpiece of modern Japanese garden design, created by the gardener Jihei Ogawa VII.
The room used for the “Murin-an Conference,” where diplomatic negotiations before the Russo-Japanese War were discussed, has been preserved as it was.
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Daigo-ji Temple is a Shingon Buddhist temple located in Fushimi Ward, Kyoto City, and is one of Kyoto’s World Heritage Sites.
It houses a large collection of Buddhist statues, paintings, and historical documents, with an estimated 70,000 items designated as National Treasures and 100,000 as Important Cultural Properties.
The five-story pagoda is the oldest wooden structure in Kyoto Prefecture, retaining its original form for over 1,000 years.
It is also famous for the “Daigo no Hanami” cherry blossom viewing event, once hosted by a renowned warlord.
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Nanzen-ji Temple, located in Sakyo-ku, Kyoto Prefecture, is the head temple of the Nanzen-ji branch of the Rinzai school of Zen Buddhism.
During the Muromachi period, it was ranked among the highest of the Kyoto Five Mountains and Kamakura Five Mountains, established by Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu as a ranking system for Rinzai Zen temples.
The spacious temple grounds are surrounded by abundant nature, offering visitors the opportunity to enjoy the beauty of nature throughout the seasons.
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Giō-ji Temple is a Shingon sect Daikaku-ji branch temple (nunnery) located in Saga, Ukyo-ku, Kyoto City.
It is a thatched-roof hut that appears in “The Tale of the Heike.” It is said that Giō, who lost the favor of Taira no Kiyomori, became a nun with her sister and mother and spent the rest of her life there.
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