Key facts

• Nijō Castle (Nijō-jō, 1603): the definitive monument of Tokugawa shogunal power in Kyoto — built in 1603 by Tokugawa Ieyasu immediately after his appointment as shōgun, on a site adjacent to the Imperial Palace but deliberately not subordinate to it, as a statement of the shogunate’s de facto supremacy; the castle consists of two concentric rings of moat and wall enclosing the Ninomaru (outer) and Honmaru (inner) palaces; the Ninomaru Palace (six interconnected buildings with 33 rooms and 800 “Kano school” painted panels by the master painter Kanō Tanyū — gold-leaf backgrounds with tigers, leopards, eagles, and pine trees) is the finest surviving example of the Shoin-zukuri style of palatial architecture; the “nightingale floors” (uguisubari) of the Ninomaru corridors produce a chirping sound when walked on — the floorboards are suspended on metal clamps that rub against nails in the subfloor — as a security measure against would-be assassins; in November 1867, in the Nijo Castle’s Ninomaru great hall, the 15th and last Tokugawa shogun formally surrendered political power to the Emperor Meiji, ending the Edo period; UNESCO listed property
• Kinkaku-ji (Temple of the Golden Pavilion, 1397): Japan’s most recognisable building and one of the most photographed structures in the world — built in 1397 as the retirement villa of the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (the third Ashikaga shogun, who was also granted the title of King of Japan by the Chinese Emperor Yongle, the only Japanese ruler to accept subordination to China), the pavilion was converted to a Rinzai Zen temple after Yoshimitsu’s death; the pavilion as it stands today is a 1955 reconstruction (the original was burned by a deranged monk in 1950 — an incident fictionalized by Yukio Mishima in his 1956 novel The Temple of the Golden Pavilion); the three-storey pavilion is entirely clad in gold leaf (the upper two storeys) and is reflected in the mirror-like Kyōkochi pond; the building exemplifies the synthesis of three distinct Japanese architectural styles: Shinden (aristocratic), Samurai, and Zen Buddhist, in three vertically stacked storeys
• Fushimi Inari Taisha: the head shrine of the Inari deity (the Shinto god of rice, foxes, sake, and business success) and the most visited Shinto shrine in Japan, with approximately 2.5 million visitors for the Hatsumode (New Year shrine visit) alone — the shrine is most famous for its approximately 10,000 torii gates (the distinctive Shinto gateway arches, in this case in bright vermilion lacquer) which form continuous tunnels (called “Senbon Torii” — “thousands of torii”) along the 4-km trail winding up the sacred Mt Inari (233 m) behind the shrine; each gate has been donated by a corporation or individual (the price of a torii gate ranges from approximately ¥400,000 for a small gate to ¥1.3 million for a large gate); the foundation of the shrine traditionally dates to 711 AD; the central shrine (at the base of the mountain) was rebuilt in the Momoyama style in 1499; UNESCO listed property
• Ginkaku-ji (Temple of the Silver Pavilion, 1490): the aesthetic counterpart to the Golden Pavilion — built in 1490 by the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa (the eighth Ashikaga shogun, one of the most aesthetically influential figures in Japanese history despite — or because of — presiding over the catastrophic Ōnin War of 1467–1477 which destroyed much of medieval Kyoto) as a retirement villa modelled on his grandfather’s Golden Pavilion; despite its name, the Silver Pavilion was never silvered — the planned silver cladding was either abandoned due to lack of funds or the silver leaf was never applied; the villa was designed as a centre for the pursuit of the arts — the “Higashiyama Culture” that developed here (Nō theatre, tea ceremony, ikebana flower arrangement, landscape gardening) became the foundation of classical Japanese aesthetics; the sand garden in front of the pavilion (the “Sea of Silver Sand”, with its mysterious cone of raked sand) is one of the finest examples of karesansui (dry landscape) garden design; UNESCO listed property
• Ryōan-ji Zen Garden: the world’s most famous dry landscape garden (karesansui) and one of the most discussed and debated works of art in any tradition — the rectangular garden (25 × 10 metres) of white raked gravel with 15 stones arranged in five groups (so placed that from any vantage point on the viewing platform, only 14 stones are visible at once — the 15th becomes visible only when one achieves enlightenment, according to Zen tradition); created approximately 1497 by an unknown designer (attributed variously to the painter Sōami and the garden designer Kanamori Sōwa, but the attribution remains uncertain); the garden is attached to Ryōan-ji temple (founded 1450); the wall surrounding the garden (of clay boiled in oil) has developed a natural patina over the centuries that is considered an integral part of the work; UNESCO listed property
• Heritage: UNESCO World Heritage Site, Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto (Kyoto, Uji and Otsu Cities), inscribed 1994. 17 component properties.
• GPS (Nijo Castle): 35.0143° N, 135.7479° E