After lunch we will explore the Gion neighborhood, extending west of Yasaka Shrine to the north and south. A cherry-blossom lined path where nice cafes and tea houses beautifully line the street, with quintessentially Kyoto views yours for the taking in. You may even meet a Maiko (roughly equivalent to young, apprenticing Geisha) if you are lucky.
Yasaka Shrine awaits your visit. Yasaka Shrine is famous for the Gion Festival, one of the three biggest festivals in Japan, which local people lovingly call "Gion San." The number of worshipers over New Year's time tops more than 1 million every year, making it one of the most popular shrines in the country. Not just New Year’s, but also throughout the year you will find many visitors from both Japan and abroad.
This is a cultural treasure of a spot that cannot be removed, as it is the oldest Zen temple in Kyoto. It was opened by Eisai, the master who is the founder of Rinzai sect and boasts the third largest Kyoto Goyama ceremony. The vast precincts are made up of many towers and beautiful gardens and are also famous for possessing many valuable cultural assets including the Wind Fuji Thunder Graphics screen.
The Nishiki market is popular as a shopping district for Kyoto locals, and has shops dealing in seasonal fish and fruits, as well as traditional craft items unique to Kyoto, so here you can enjoy both shopping and eating while strolling.
A popular tourist spot in Kyoto, Fushimi Inari Shrine is one of the most beautiful and peaceful areas you’ll find in Japan. Composed with thousands of shrines, this popular location attracts visitors and photographers for it’s illusional, maze-like effect the shrines create when walking through it’s path.
We had a wonderful tour with our guide Yoriko to Golden pavillion, the castle and food market. She is very knowledgable and gave us many rekomendations what else to do in Kyoto.
We really enjoyed our tour, thank you so much!
Yoriko is a very nice and professional guide. We learnt a lot about Japanese culture and history and had a very good time. Couldn't have wished for more.
This tour was the perfekt start to our trip to Kyoto! Very interesting and joyful. The guide Miyako was amazing. She was knowledgeable and spoke English very well.
Our guide Yoriko was amazing! she was extremely flexible with the itinerary and very familiar with Kyoto since she lives here! we have high praise for her and would highly recommend her for anyone interested in an insider's view of Kyoto
Etsuko is a very nice person with a huge knowledge of histroy. She showed us all the wonderful places we wished to see and more always with hostorical explainations. We would highly recommend this personal tour.
Etsuko is a very lovely person with a huge knowledge of history. We enjoyed our tour very much. Thank you for showing us the old part of Kyoto and the peaceful Temples!
We had a great tour with ms Ogama to the Nijo-jo castle, Golden Pavilion and Nishiki market. We got all the historic information we could ask for and furthermore lots of interesting facts on current japanese life and habits. All with a very pleasant feel and at a good pace.
Interesting history and relaxing conversations. A Great experience!
Had a great day out despite the rain, always nice visiting historic places with knowledgeable guide. Recommended .
Yoriko is a formidable guide with expertise and the ability to share it in an enjoyable and smart fashion. She is also personal and very nice to travel with, we are so glad to have invested in time with her on our first visit to Kyoto. It opened up the country and the city to us.
Wonderful tour! Yoriko is an amazing guide. We had so much fun and learned so much. The spots were well chosen and beautiful, one of the highligts of our trip! It was perfect. Thank you Yoriko!
We thoroughly enjoyed our half-day private guided tour with Michiko. She was incredibly friendly, welcoming, and knowledgeable. We learned so much and left with an even greater interest in Japanese history after visiting the Golden Temple and Shogun's Castle. It was a fantastic day, and we highly recommend this type of guided tour to anyone visiting Japan.
We had a lovely day in Kyoto with Mr Kuni who was a great company aswell as a very competent guide! We give him our very highest recommendations!
The guide was nice and personable Greet experience
Yoriko was a fantastic guide - very knowledgeable, friendly and easy going. We loved our day with her.
Today we saw the amazing beauty of Kyotos treasures of architecture and gardens. It was realy fascinating and we are impressed.
Fantastic tour of Nishiki Market and Mariko definitely had the knowledge of which stalls were the best to try. Great to have such local knowledge of the local area, as well as knowing what prices were acceptable. Bonus for the great coffee location 🤩
Great guide providing valuable information but not to much.
Our private Kyoto tour was an absolute highlight of our trip! Our guide, Yoshifumi, was incredibly kind, fun, and made the whole experience feel personal—especially special for me and my fiancé. He showed us beautiful shrines, temples, and markets we never would have found on our own, and everything was perfectly paced. He also went above and beyond to accommodate our dietary needs and took us to an amazing lunch spot that was both stunning and delicious. It truly felt like exploring with a friend. We would 100% book with him again and highly recommend him to anyone visiting Kyoto!
Thank you for an interesting and pleasant tour in Kyoto. We felt really well taken care of and learned a lot of interesting facts about Kyoto!
Really nice tour with splendid and interesting places to visit. It was easy to go on the subway and bus and get an introduction to them our first day in Kyoto was perfect. Our guide Diego was very helpful and knowledgeable of Japanese history and culture. We learned a lot and had a great and fun time with our family. We can highly recommend this tour and in particular our nice guide, Diego.
Sachi did an amazing job at guiding us through Kyoto. She helped us adjust the itinerary to our needs and she explains different temples and shrine for us. She even got me to try one of her favourite sweet treat and it was delicious. Train stations is very overwhelming so we get a little stressed. Sachi is very fast for a little lady hahahaha but she’ll always look back to make sure you are still there. 10/10 would recommend her.
Sachi is amazing. She showed us all of the temples we wanted to see and explain the history and culture throughout the tour. She is so kind, she even got us to try one of her favourite sweet treat and it was so good. 100% would recommend to everyone.
It was a wonderful day tour with Mariko. She kept the day lively and engaging. She took us through streets of Kyoto, shrines and clicked beautiful picture of us. She also helped us try Japan foods and snacks. It was worth trying and worth every step we took on the entire day. Thank you Mariko, you were so great for us!
An interesting and memorable guided tour. The guide was knowledgeable and the tour well planned. I can certainly recommend this tour to anyone planning to visit Kyoto.
Miki was kind enough to spend the day with our family showing us the beautiful sights of Kyoto. We found Miki to be knowledgeable, courteous & great fun to spend the day with. The tour itself was well put together & took in some of the most stunning places Kyoto has to offer. Miki topped the tour off by being such a lovely guide
We had a fantastic day with our tour guide Miki. She had so much knowledge of everywhere we visited and made the day run so smoothly for us. She was warm, welcoming and so helpful.
A beautiful introduction to Kyoto. Our guide, Diego, was punctual, professional and so passionate about Japanese culture. Highly recommend.
We had the most wonderful tour around Kyoto with Nobuko today!!! We booked a 1-day tour that was extremely customizable and swapped some shrines for temples that we were interested in and we were delighted to see everything we hoped to and more! Nobuko was so kind, friendly, knowledgeable, patient, and an absolute joy to spend time with. This tour was a highlight of our trip to Japan and we highly recommend booking a tour with Nobuko for a fun, informative, and memorable experience!!! Thank you so much for everything and we will be sure to book again on a future trip!!
10/10 experience from booking the tour to the information provided for each destination we visited. Diego was an amazing guide and I would recommend his assistance without hesitation.
I joined the private tour on October 19th, and it was truly one of the best experiences of my trip. The guide was kind, knowledgeable, and made every place we visited come alive with stories and history. Kyoto’s beauty and peaceful atmosphere left a deep impression on me. I felt like I was walking through living history, not just sightseeing. Thank you for an unforgettable day — I’ll always remember it!
Our tour with Ai was really good and we so appreciated her time and patience with our questions. Ai was easy to understand and explanation were very good - she also made sure we went to a very good cafe for lunch. We certainly would highly recommend your Co and Ai to other tourists Thankyou Lorraine and Neville Smith
This was a real treat. First of all, Marikos first language is English (it isn't for me) so communication was really easy. Mariko didn't feel like a guide, more like friend showing you the city she knows and loves. 10/10 recommends.
We really enjoyed our tour with Ai. There were three of us (myself, my husband and my mum) and Ai made a concerted effort to chat to each of us and ensure we were all having a great time. She was knowledgeable about the places we visited and happy to stop for impromptu shopping and detours. Would definitely recommend booking a tour with Ai!
Our tour guide Etsuko took us the walking of Kyoto. She is knowledgeable of the City and through out our took she made sure that we are comfortable as we did our tour during extreme heat wave. She had cold green tea for us and the cooling wipes . She gave us choices to where we want to focus our tour. I highly recommend this tour with this tour guide.
We would like to thank Yoriko and her company for a superb day in Kyoto. She was flexible with what we wanted to see, was accommodating to what we wanted to do, she had a lot of energy to do it all and on top of that her English and knowledge of the places that we visited was superb. I'd highly recommend this business and team
Had an amazing guide, loved that as we git to both experience the greater sites and shared knowledge of small things that one might not notice.
Our guide Miki Kioka composed and led a wonderful private half-day tour for our family of four including two teenagers. Miki was a very personable and knowledgeable guide to a set of diverse and fascinating sights namely the Golden Pavilion, Nijo-Jo and Nishiki Market. All four of us truly enjoyed the experience. Highly recommended!
Yuki was exceptionally helpful and knowledgeable and we experienced a very enjoyable time. Only damper was the rain however Yuki managed to reorganise the tour to keep us dry as possible and still see everything. 🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩
We had an incredible full-day walking tour of Kyoto with our guide! She was warm, friendly, and incredibly knowledgeable about the city’s history and culture. We visited beautiful temples, peaceful shrines, and even explored a vibrant local food market. Her excellent English made everything easy to understand, and she was always happy to answer questions and share interesting stories along the way. It was a perfect way to experience Kyoto, and we highly recommend her to anyone visiting the city!
Our nice guide had a lot to tell us about the sites, especially interesting was the visit to the golden pavillion. Unfortunately the planning of the order of sites in relation to our hotel failed, so the transports were unnecessesarily long. Suggestion to the guide: use the transports to tell us about Kyoto and Japan.
Mariko was a wonderful guide. She was very knowledgeable about the temples, shrines, and neighborhoods of Kyoto, and took lots of great pictures of the two of us. And, since my girlfriend is vegan, she found a great vegan ramen place for us to have lunch. I would wholeheartedly recommend taking her tour.
Our guide, Ai gave us the best possible start of our Japan trip, by sharing with us her knowledge and passion for Kyoto in a charming way 🤩 She picked us up at our hotel and expertly lead us trough the transport system, which saved us a lot of time and trouble and gave us historical perspectives as well as insights into modern Japan. Also, her English is excellent, which is not always the case with guides.
I don't care how much research you do beforehand, nothing beats this. Michiko San was brilliant. We were fortunate to see the popular bits of Kyoto (and more secret bits). The best part was learning the symbolism of everything in (from shrine to street-art). Domo Arigato.
Love our day in Kyoto with Sachi. She is very knowledgable, friendly and nothing is too much for her to help you. The itinerary was perfect for us, what a great day!
We had a private guide, Aki, for 4 hours in Kyoto when we arrived and she was great! We visited several places and she gave us tips so we learned how to use public transportation etc.
We had a lovely day in Kyoto with Miki. It was a really nice combo of highlights with a well informed guide. It was a pleasure talking with her about bits and pieces about Japan and it's culture.
We had a wonderful experience on our tour thanks to our guide Mariko. She shared so much fascinating information about Japanese traditions, the history of the shrines, and the Shinto religion. Her deep knowledge and passion for the culture made the tour truly special. Throughout the day, she was incredibly kind, caring, and full of positive energy, making us feel welcome and comfortable. It was clear that she genuinely loves what she does, and it made the experience unforgettable. Highly recommend! Thank you Mariko for a wonderful day experiencing Kyoto.
Yoshimi is a very pleasant guide… she gave us a lots of good recommandation. Took pictures of us. Explain well and we had lots of interesting converstation.
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