Day 4 - Kyoto

We were determined not to walk anywhere near as much today as we did yesterday, with the reason being that we start our Nakasendo hike tomorrow so wanted to save our legs. Epic fail! We spent 12 hours out and about and walked 34,000 steps. Eeek.

We were up nice and early, heeding all advice that if you wish to avoid the crowds at the Fushimi Inari Taisha that you need to get there early. We decided to walk the 5km to get there, which was simply delightful in the quiet streets of Monday morning Kyoto. Still quite a crowd once we got to the Shrine site, but as soon as you peeled away to do the circuit walk to the top of Mt Inari it thinned out considerably and was quite peaceful.

We meandered through the thousands of vermillion tori gates, managing to catch a few snaps in the beginning which look like we had it to ourselves (spoiler...we didn't), but in fact once the influencer types gave up and you kept walking up to the top of Mt Inari, there were quite a few sections without many people which was lovely. On the way to the top we passed loads of beautiful family shrines, all the more gorgeous for their moss covering and forest settings.

There were a few spits of rain which also had the magical effect of clearing the crowds. It was 11.30am by the time we got back to the bottom, and since we were still sans breakfast and coffee, we stopped at a cafe called Vermillion that we had read about in a blog (so influencers are useful for something right?). The owner was a local who had lived in Australia, so our smashed avo on toast came with a smear of Vegemite, and they were conveniently also brought bring espresso coffee. Best. Coffee. Beautiful cafe looking out over a lake.

Next stop was to walk to the Hanamikoji and Gion districts, famous for geisha. In Kyoto they are known as geiko and maiko (the apprentice geiko). This was all quite bustling. Our goal was to stay until sunset so we could see it lit up with lanterns. On the walk there we came across half a dozen true trainspotters perched up on a train overpass with gigantic lens cameras. We hung around to see what the special train was that they were waiting for. Many trains came and went, they didn't snap any of them. So we continued on, none the wiser about the special train we were missing out on.

We accepted a suggestion from the lady out the front to visit the Gion Kagai Art Museum which included two dances from a geiko and maiko which are performed at a traditional tea ceremony. The museum was done extremely well. Very engaging. We sat inside on a tatami for about 45 minutes afterwards looking at the garden, doing a bit of stretching and enjoying the fact that we had our shoes off. I spent some time searching for a nearby masseuse, so we set off in search of one such establishment. When we got there, the sign at the elevator said "men only" so we figured that was not the kind of place suitable for refined middle-aged ladies like us. By then we had our second wind anyway.

Dinner was at the first place we passed at the time we thought it was time to eat, which was a quirky place that sold only one meal of okonomiyaki (vegie and meat options available). It was a strange place which played the one weird little song over and over, had lots of collections of figurines around the walls, and fully dressed mannequins sitting at several of the tables. Cheap and cheerful.

We wandered back through the district in twilight, no real-life geishas spotted, with a quick dash into UniQlo for me to buy a couple of spare tshirts to end the day. OMG, so much cheaper here!

A physically exhausting but absolute highlight day!Read more