Classic Japan

The rest of the day is at leisure. If arriving in the morning, we can arrange for a guided afternoon tour taking in some of Tokyo’s highlights (at additional cost), though you may prefer to explore the city at leisure or relax in your hotel.

Your first stop is Meiji Jingu, Tokyo’s most famous Shinto shrine. Set within a huge 200-acre park in the heart of the city, and surrounded by beautiful gardens, Meiji is wonderfully serene.

From Meiji, take a stroll down Takeshita Street (Harajuku), a popular teen hangout, to Omotesando. This lengthy promenade is famous the world over and houses Tokyo’s most fashionable stores and boutiques, as well as many of its most striking buildings, such as the iconic shopping complex, Omotesando Hills.

A short subway ride will take you from the modernist sheen of Omotesando, with its imposing tower blocks and stylized glass-and-metal facades, to the narrow alleyways and wooden shopfronts of Asakusa.

The heart of Tokyo’s shitamachi, or old town, Asakusa was once the city’s traditional entertainment district, as well as the original home of Kabuki theatre. Take the time to wander through Asakusa’s lantern-lit lanes and tour its ancient temples.

End the day with a boat cruise on the Sumida River, taking you from Asakusa to Hamarikyu Garden. Surrounded by a sea of skyscrapers in the heart of the city, this formerly private garden is a quiet refuge from the crowds. Enjoy a stroll through the garden, stopping for a taste of green macha tea at a local teahouse, before being returned to your hotel.

A local guide will be waiting for you on arrival at Nikko JR station. They’ll accompany you this morning as you tour some of the many shrines and temples that make up the Nikko World Heritage site.

Located in a dense cryptomeria forest to the north of the small city of Nikko, the Toshogu Shrine was built in the early 17th century as a tribute to Tokugawa Ieyasu, founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate and one of Japan’s great unifiers. Initially a modest mausoleum, Toshogu developed in the 200 years following Tokugawa’s death into a spectacular complex of lavishly decorated shrines, which stands as much a tribute to the glories of Japan’s Edo period (1600-1868) as to the Tokugawa public good.

Against popular perceptions of traditional Japanese taste, Toshogu is decidedly grandiose, its numerous halls and pagodas overloaded with sculpted detail.

Surrounding Toshogu, but forming part of the same overall complex, are the temples of Rinnoji and Taiyu-in, as well as several smaller sites. You can explore the whole area on foot, but you’ll need a full day to cover everything. With your guide you should be able to cover the major sights this morning. Then, after lunch in town, continue exploring the shrine complex, or, if you want a change of pace, pay a visit to the Nikko Botanical Garden. End the day with a stroll along the Kanmangafuchi Abyss, a scenic walking trail that follows the course of the Daiya River through a deep gorge lined with traditional jizo statues.

Your guide will return you to the JR station late this afternoon for the return ride to Tokyo.

You stay tonight in a traditional minshuku – a small family-run guesthouse – in Tsumago.

One of 69 ‘shukuba’, or post stations, that served the 500km Nakasendo highway between Tokyo and Kyoto during the 17th and 18th centuries, Tsumago is a beautifully-preserved town which still retains much of its Edo-era charm and character, as well as many of its original buildings. It’s a living community, but much of Tsumago feels like an open-air museum. As you explore the old town centre on foot, stopping to enter its feudal-era inns, warehouses and labourers’ cottages, you’ll feel like you’ve stepped back 300 years in time.

On arrival in Nagiso, you will be met by your hosts and transferred to Tsumago, where you stay in a traditional family-run guesthouse with tatami mat flooring, futon beds, and onsen baths. For dinner, you’ll be served a tasty kaiseki (multi-course) meal fit for a samurai!

The 3-4 hour (8km) journey is made on foot, following one of Japan’s most scenic walking routes, and will see you trek through pine forests and quiet mountain villages, past stepped rice paddies and fields of green tea, before arriving in Magome.

Kiso’s southernmost post town, Magome is a pretty settlement set on a steep mountain slope, from where it enjoys commanding views of Mt Ena. Developed around a cobbled section of the Nakasendo highway, Magome captures the spirit and ambience of the Edo era wonderfully in its creaky old water mill and traditional wooden inns.

Spend a pleasant hour exploring Magome before moving on to Nakatsugawa by bus. Notable sights in Magome include the old flour mill, with its creaking wooden water wheel; and the home of the early 20th-century novelist Shimazaki Tōson, now a museum displaying fragments of the writer’s life.

From Nakatsugawa, take the JR train to Takayama, a wonderfully atmospheric Jomon-era town that is most famous for its biannual festival. You stay tonight in a traditional ryokan in the heart of Takayama’s old town. End the day with a kaiseki dinner at your traditional ryokan and a soak in Takayama’s famous hot springs to recover from the morning’s long walk.

After breakfast at your ryokan, we recommend starting your tour of Takayama with a visit to the Miyagawa Morning Market, where you can browse stores selling local sweets such as mochi and genkotsu ame, or “fist candy”, alongside traditional crafts. Miyagawa isn’t just a tourist market, however. Many locals come here to do their morning shop, so alongside the usual trinkets and gifts you’ll find lots of fresh local produce, like tsekemono (Japanese pickles), for which the Hida region is famous.

Late this morning, pay a visit to the Takayama Festival Floats Museum, where Takayama’s famous processional floats are displayed when not in use. Time allowing, you might also like to visit some of Takayama’s smaller, mostly private museums. Among our favourites is Showa Kan, which is chock-a-block with 20th-century Japanese memorabilia!

For lunch, sample some of Takayama’s local specialities, such as Hida beef steamed buns and Hoba miso. For vegetarians, the popular Bandai Kadomise in Takayama old town does a lovely all-vegetable lunch set comprised of the best Hida produce. Afterwards, wash it all down with a sake tasting at one of Takayama’s many open breweries!

In the evening, return to your ryokan for dinner.

Sometimes referred to as “little Kyoto”, Kanazawa is one of Japan’s great cultural capitals. Its sights are many and varied. The highlight for most visitors to the city, and a good place to start your tour, is Kenroku-en Garden. One of the top three Great Gardens of Japan, Kenroku-en’s beauty shines through in all seasons. A visit to the imposing Kanazawa Castle, directly next door the gardens, is also a must. Though very little of the original fortification survives, the castle impresses with its scale and beautifully-maintained grounds.

In the afternoon, explore Kanazawa’s original Geisha district, Nishi Chaya, with its traditional tea houses and wooden shopfronts. Within walking distance of Nishi Chaya is the temple district, which contains innumerable shrines and small family temples. On the way back to your hotel, make a stop at Nagamachi, Kanazawa’s Samurai district, where you can tour carefully-preserved Samurai homes and wander narrow lanes skirted by high earthen walls.

Kanazawa is one of Japan’s great culinary capitals, meaning you’re spoilt for choice when it comes to dining out. Seafood is the local specialty, with the city home to several top sushi restaurants. We can make dinner reservations for you in advance, if required.

Perhaps more than any other city in the world, Hiroshima is synonymous with a single moment in history, the dropping of the first atomic bomb in August 1945. The association is such that, for many of the hundreds of thousands of visitors who travel to the city every year to pay their respects at the Peace Memorial Park and Museum, it might come as a surprise to find that, outside of these monuments to the past, Hiroshima is a vibrant, modern city, with a warm coastal climate and an equally sunny disposition.

After checking into your hotel, we recommend a visit to the Peace Memorial Park. Situated close to the heart of the city, the memorial marks the exact location where the atomic bomb was dropped on August 6th, 1945. Its centrepiece, the Genbaku Dome, is a husk of a building, a skeleton structure preserved as a monument to the destruction caused by the bomb.

Take your time to explore the Memorial Park and its adjoining museum, before returning to your hotel.

In the evening, we recommend taking the streetcar into central Hiroshima to visit the Okonomimura food park, where you can sample Hiroshima’s most popular dish, Okonomiyaki, delicious grilled pancakes!

A small forested island situated in the Seto Inland Sea, Miyajima is home to one of Japan’s most iconic sights, the Floating Torii Gate. Part of the 6th-century Itsukushima Shrine, the Torii Gate is located some 200 metres offshore so that, when the tide comes in, it appears to float above the water. The view of the gate at sunset or sunrise against the backdrop of the island is truly spectacular.

The tram and ferry ride to Miyajima takes about an hour. Try to set off early so as to give yourself ample time to explore the island. Besides Itsukushima, you’ll want to allow time to visit Miyajima’s smaller temples, such as the beautiful Daisho-in, a Buddhist temple situated at the foot of the thickly-forested Mount Misen. Time-allowing, you might also like to take the cable car to the top of Misen for stunning views of the island, and, on a clear day, Hiroshima port.

Finally, don’t leave Miyajima without sampling the local dish, barbecued oysters, at one of the island’s many oyster restaurants!

Return to Hiroshima on the late afternoon ferry.

Depart Hiroshima this morning on the train bound for Kotohira, in the north-east of Shikoku Island. Kotohira is a small town that houses Shikoku’s most impressive shrine complex, Kompira-san, a major pilgrimage site situated on the forested slopes of Mount Zozu. The Kompira complex is a fascinating blend of Shinto and Buddhist tradition, thought to have been constructed in the 10th century AD, perhaps earlier, in honour of the Shinto guardian of mariners, Ō-mono-nushi-no-mikoto.

Most visitors to Kompira-san will climb only as far as the main hall. A further climb of several hundred steps along a quiet forest trail will take you to the inner shrine (Okusha), for which you’re rewarded with a marvellous view of Kotohira and the Sanuki Plain.

Tonight you’ll be staying in a ryokan in Kotohira, with outdoor hot spring baths overlooking Kompira-san. For dinner, delicious kaiseki-ryori!

Kyoto is classical Japan writ large, a city of ancient Buddhist shrines, tranquil gardens and sublime palaces. It is the home of Japanese court culture and traditional artisanry, and the setting and focal point of over 1,000 years of Japanese Imperial history. For first-time visitors, Kyoto can be overwhelming. The city houses no fewer than 2,000 temples and shrines, of which 17 are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Certainly, no other city in Japan can rival Kyoto for historical and cultural interest.

It’s Kyoto’s equally rich cuisine and food culture, and not its temples, which will be the focus of your tour this afternoon. You’ll be collected from your hotel by a culinary guide, who will lead you on a guided tour of Kyoto’s mile-long Nishiki covered food markets, to be followed by a traditional cooking class! The Nishiki market tour is a chance for you to learn more about Japanese cuisine, while at the same time shopping for the ingredients you’ll need to prepare traditional dishes such as rolled sushi and miso soup in your cookery class.

After the cooking class and dinner, the rest of the evening is free for you to explore central Kyoto. Let your guide know if you’d prefer to return directly to your hotel.

Before travelling to Higashiyama, however, pay a visit to Nijo Castle, situated close to the heart of the city. Built in 1603 by the first Tokugawa shogun, Ieyasu, Nijo Castle is considered by many to be the definitive piece of Momoyama (1573-1615) architecture. Intricate woodcarvings and Kano-style sliding doors give the interiors an understated elegance, and suggest that this palace was intended to be a demonstration of the Tokugawa clan’s cultural credentials as much as their military prowess.

Leaving Nijo Castle, take the train to Fushimi-Inari, a large shrine complex situated at the base of the Inari Mountain in the far south-east of Kyoto. Famed for its seemingly endless procession of vibrant vermilion torii, Fushimi-Inari is perhaps Kyoto’s most immediately spectacular sight. It’s a huge complex, with numerous miniature shrines and offering halls to get lost among. Allow two hours to explore in full, before breaking for lunch.

From Fushimi-Inari, take the train north to Higashiyama Station, and continue on foot to Kiyomizu (the “pure water” Temple), your last stop for the day.

Set on the slopes of Mount Otowa, Kiyomizu enjoys stunning views of the city from its main hall, which hangs dramatically over the edge of a cliff, its 13-metre high verandah supported by 139 wooden pillars arranged in an intricate lattice-like pattern. Allow an hour to explore the temple and its numerous halls and pagodas, before walking down Chawan-zaka (Teapot Lane), with its quaint shops selling souvenirs, sweets and Kiyomizu-yaki pottery, to Kyoto’s central Gion district.

The tour ends in Gion.

Start with Kasuga Taisha, Nara’s most celebrated Shinto shrine, which is situated in the verdant Kasugayama Primeval Forest in the far west of the city.

Kasuga Taisha is notable for its beautiful botanical gardens and elaborately decorated offering hall. Perhaps more impressive than the shrine itself, however, is the approach. A towering shrine gate at the foot of Mt Kasuga marks the entrance to the shrine, from where a winding path flanked by two thousand stone lanterns climbs through the woods to the main offering hall.

From Kasuga Taisha, it’s possible to walk down through Nara Deer Park to the city’s star attraction, Todaiji Temple. The world’s largest wooden building, containing Japan’s tallest Buddha (Daibutsu), Todaiji is a spectacular sight.

For further sightseeing in Nara, we recommend Isuien, a sublime Meiji-era garden, and Kofukuji Temple, notable for its five-storey pagoda (the second highest in Japan). Return to Kyoto on the late afternoon train.