Kyoto

The unusual turn of the wooden figure leads to a legend about an abbot who once stopped during prayer.

A family dispute over the heir explains why the palace appeared on the site of a burned monastery.

It connects the stone by the water with an ochaya room, a poetic line, and a house that is no longer there.

It explains how an annual dance, a school, and a theater turned former temple land into Gion's main street.

This stop will link a court scandal to the construction of a monastery that began several centuries later.

Here begins the route from Japan's first main railway to the old shrine at the foot of the mountain.

This stop will show how the pilgrims' dangerous vow came to be connected with Kannon, temple oversight, and an expression that still lives on.

The layout of the present shrine will result from military defeat, fire, and a long collection of donations.

The final height links the view of the Hozu River with a family decision that split the imperial dynasty.

A temple legend will explain how a country palace became one of Kyoto's leading Zen monasteries.

It will show how Hideyoshi's widow established a home, a memorial temple, and her own mausoleum nearby under the new government.

It will return to the residential street the two rooms rented by an artist for a shared life that never began here.

A temporary residence will show how a courtly selection changed one princess's life.

This private estate shows where an actor put his earnings between shoots.

This point takes the route from the buildings at the foot of the mountain to the legendary origins of worship of the mountain itself.

Two relatively recent figures show how an ancient shrine acquired its present-day symbol.

The canal and cherry trees bear witness to how residents made the city change its road project.

A ruler’s gift of thanks leads into a world of requests, promises, and physical evidence.

This stop will change the familiar image of an ancient grove: a new generation of bamboo has risen above the path.

It explains why merchants and homeowners first improved the route for customers, then agreed to preserve its facades.

Here, one personal request will turn into an object that has taken its place among hundreds of other offerings.

The arches show the engineering solution that had to be found after the dispute over the canal route.

The garden links the war of two courts, maritime trade, and the memory of a defeated emperor.

Here you will learn how local families acquired, along with a mountainside, the duty to maintain an old rite.

The final stretch connects former mountain shrine sites with thousands of private altars.

The crossing connects today’s strolling Arashiyama with the reworking of a river freight route.

This will connect the five-tiered tower with a dispute between two religious communities and the people who erected it again on its original site.

It will explain which names, images, and structures had to be removed for a mixed complex to become a Shinto shrine.

Before the mountain circuit, you will come to a house where the pilgrimage road was both a family business and the setting of childhood life.