We had our fair share of temple hopping days in Japan, and one of the grandest experiences we had was visiting the 17 properties of the World Heritage Sites located in Kyoto Prefecture. We took a local bus from Kyoto Station straight to the entrance of the temple, which only took about 20 minutes and was extremely convenient. The World Heritage Site is also walkable depending on where you are in Kyoto, so do a quick Google Map search to see which method of transportation makes the most sense for you.
We made our way to the famous Kiyomizu-dera Temple very early on a rainy, weekday and soaked in the quiet beauty of one of the most visited temples in Japan. Kiyomizu-dera is a Buddha temple that stands on pillars at Higashiyama Hills. You have to purchase a ticket to enter the main temple, but admission grants you access to one of the most beautiful skyline views! Unfortunately, the main temple was under construction during our visit, but we nonetheless enjoyed the walk once the rain let down a bit in the later morning hours. There were also dozens of food vendors and souvenir shops lining the streets on our walk toward Gion, so definitely spend some time shopping and eating in between your temple visits!
If you're interesting in reading more about each individual heritage site, we highly recommend checking this site out to read about the different eras that each temple represents. Our time was pretty limited the day we visited, since we had planned to visit the Gion district later to shop and eat. If we had more time, we would have easily spent an entire day exploring all of the temples on the World Heritage Site grounds. Until next time Kyoto, we loved you so much!
Oufit Details
Jess: Top - Zara, Skirt - Bloomingdales, Shoes - Zara (similar)
Mel: Top - Zara, Shorts - Zara (different pattern), Shoes - Dolce Vita
