| Traditional Kyoto by bike (Every Mon & Fri) | |
Meeting time and place: 8:30 am at Sakura Sari restaurant Price of this tour: ¥ 10.500 (incl. bikes and entrance fees) |
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During this full-day bike tour, you will learn about the most important aspects of the traditional culture of Kyoto, from Buddhist Zen temples, Shinto shrines to the geisha districts of Gion and Miyagawacho. You can experience both nature and culture in abundance. We move with our bikes on car-free trails and narrow lanes with little traffic. You can expect an impressive and extremely varied tour with many impressions that can only be experienced by bike. Let an expert for Japanese culture introduce you to the cultural background.
Total distance is about 17 km on flat terrain with trekking or e-bikes in different sizes.
Details:
We start the tour from our bike station in the east of Kyoto. On the ride to the Silver Pavilion (Ginkakuji) we pass the Kyoto University campus, one of the elite universities here in Japan. We visit the Ginkakuji Temple with its famous dry landscape garden. Ginkakuji played an important role in the development of the traditional culture in Japan.
We continue on the Philosopher`s path, lined with many cherry trees that bloom in spring. We ride along a canal past numerous temples, shrines and traditional houses until we reach Nanzenji Zen Temple at the southern end. This is one of the important and large Zen temples in Kyoto. This fact is also borne out by its imposing buildings.
We continue on narrow streets lined with beautiful traditional Japanese mansions and arrive at the Heian Shrine. We visit this Shinto shrine and you will learn what the indigenous Shinto religion is all about.
From there we cross the Maruyama Park and the old town quarter. Here Kyoto has retained its original character. With a bit of luck we can see a geisha in the Gion district with its many tea houses. Immediately afterwards we stand, as a contrast point, in front of the buildings of Kenninji, the oldest Zen temple in Japan. Close by we cruise through another geisha district, the Miyagawacho, which is not as crowded as Gion.
At the end of the tour we visit the Sanjusangendo Temple with its 1000 multi-armed Buddha images. We cycle back along the Kamogawa River to the starting point of the tour. After the tour, there is an optional rice wine tasting in a sake brewery for an additional charge of ¥ 1500.
Tourdates: Every Monday and Friday or on request
This tour Includes: Trekking bikes and entrance fees to indicated tourist attractions.
E-bike: ¥ 1000 surcharge
Rice wine tasting: ¥ 1500 surcharge