Between Nikko, Kamakura and Kyoto, there is no shortage of Shinto and Buddhist shrines and temples, as well as Edo period buildings to explore. There is such a high density in these three areas alone, that you could spend many days exploring each and every one. We took the approach of following some guidelines and recommendations from Japan-Guide, but in the end, we just kind of made up our itinerary as we went along.
Two things are for certain: you will walk for miles in these areas, and you will see hordes of Japanese schoolchildren. They will say hello to you, and test their English out on you, and some will even high five you. In Kamakura, we were stopped 4 separate times by different kids in yellow caps to respond to a set of questions that they were assigned to ask in English. In return, we tested out some of our rudimentary Japanese. This audience was far and away the most consistently, genuinely welcoming demographic we encountered no matter where we went.
Japan Guide does an excellent job describing what you should see in each of these areas, as well as the history behind them. I'll just describe what we ended up doing as a result of using this information as input to our travel.
Nikko
There's a couple ways to get here from Tokyo, but since we have a JR Pass, we ended up on a Shinkansen (bullet train) for about an hour, followed by a nice, leisurely, local train ride through the woods for about 35 minutes. Other trains (not operated by JR) are faster, so if getting there is your first priority, then you may want to consider a ride on a Tobu train out of Shinjuku station from Tokyo instead of on the Shinkansen from Tokyo station like we took. Once in Nikko, we headed up to the Tobu train station (5 minutes by foot from the JR station) and bought ourselves a bus pass for getting around to the sights in Nikko. You can get to the things here on foot, but you'll prefer the bus ride. There's a couple options for passes. We got the cheapest one, maybe 600¥ or something for each of us.
There's two areas to see in Nikko: in temples and shrines in town, and the natural features of the National Park to the west of town. We didn't do the national park visit, but we saw in town was absolutely incredible. The main feature to Nikko is the Toshogu Shrine which is this amazing set of buildings constructed into the wooded hillside to the Northern end of Nikko village. At the summit of your exploration, you get to visit the mausoleum of Tokugawa Ieyasu (the fine gentleman responsible for the 250 years of shogun rule in Japan until the late 19th century).
Leading up to, and walking away from the Toshogu Shrine are a variety of other temples and their affiliated buildings which were great to explore. One large temple was currently undergoing a massive renovation, a pattern we would see in many of the places we visited, we suspect due to Japan hosting the 2020 summer Olympics.
After a visit to the picturesque bridge that leads from the village to the wold heritage site containing the Toshogu Shrine, we had lunch at a traditional Japanese restaurant, ordered a curry dish, which is not I guess considered a traditional Japanese meal, and made our way back to Tokyo.
In reflection, I wish we had spent more time in Nikko. Although the sites we did see were incredible, I feel like we were still novices about how touring these places works, and could have gotten a bit more out of our visit. Well, there's always next time.
Kamakura
Kamakura is about an hour or so south of Tokyo by standard rail. We ended up on an express train which I guess if you don't take can make the journey about twice as long (with a stop at every station between Tokyo to Yokohama and beyond). Kamakura is different from Nikko in that it's a bigger city, and seems to be a bit more of a general tourist destination, with a lot of local vendors selling goods aimed at Japanese and foreign tourists alike.We arrived early by Japanese standards at around 9:15, and since nothing to see was open yet, we enjoyed a breakfast at an Excelsior Coffee, which for what it's worth, is the third best place to get a coffee in Japan. Starbucks is number two, and this cafe we ate at in Kyoto, where they actually roast the coffee beans on the spot (seemingly rare in Japan, given their love of coffee houses and cafes) is at the top of the list. We discussed our plan, which was to check out about a half dozen or so shrines/temples in Kamakura town. Then head a little further down the coast to check out a giant Buddhist temple (perhaps the most well known attraction in or around Kamakura). Then, go even further down the coast to Enoshima to check out the 'Sea Candle', and maybe the aquarium if there was time.
After breakfast, and with some help from the (now open) local tourist information center, we set off into the town of Kamakura. We wouldn't know until almost a week later, but Kamakura is very similar to Kyoto, and perhaps a lot of the areas of populated Japan, where the relics of the past are very much integrated into the settings of today. This is a very different feel from Nikko, which seems to almost be a like a walk back in time. The first major stop for us, after a being stopped by a group of 6 students to interrogate us in broken English was Hachimangu Shrine. The shrine itself is impressive, but the grounds around it including the open air museums, tree lines pathways, and Lilly filled ponds are what really make this place beautiful.
Exiting this area dumped us immediately into a residential area which could pass just as well for any part of suburban Europe, we're it not for the unintelligible signage along the way. We found ourselves visiting two very small shrines connected by a worn wooded path. Very secluded, and very quiet. Somehow, we had managed to stay ahead of the packs of school aged children tasked with overrunning the city. We did catch up with a few smaller groups while waking back through the residential streets towards the train station, and were surprised to find, consistently, groups of like 5 to 10 kids, apparently part of a larger group, wandering from site to site, just like us. Nine of them were perhaps more than 12 years old, which for an American seems like a strange sight. Eventually, they would connect back at the station with the rest of their group, and move on to the next attraction, with us not far behind.
You can walk from Kamakura to the Great Buddha temple, but it's a few kilometers, and the train is cheap, so we took that. You can get an unlimited one day pass on the Enoden line, that goes between Kamakura and Fujisawa for 600¥. We only needed to travel to Hase and then on to Enoshima and back to Kamakura, but that was enough to justify the price of the pass.
Three interviews by school children, about 100 photos, and a dish of bruschetta with fish and caviar instead of tomato and basil later, and we were on our way back to Tokyo. There was a lot of other stuff that we saw in between all that, but the pictures, and Wikipedia, and Japan-Guide tell the story better than I can...
Kyoto
You could probably make a separate vacation just to Kyoto and Osaka with all the things to do in this part of Japan. We were going to have to make due with only two days, and whatever supplies I could fit in my backpack. Our plan was to spend the first day touring the Arishyama district to the west of Kyoto city, and then spend the second day seeing all the Edo period temples and shrines along the Northeast side of Kyoto City.
We made sure to book travel on the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto to ensure that we could arrive with enough time to do things. We were also especially cautious to book travel after accidentally blowing our plans for travel the day before our trip to Kyoto. having assuming there'd be non-reserved cars on a train headed North when there weren't any. Aboard the train, we saw caught tremendous views of Mt Fuji, peeking through the haze and overcast of the rain we had left behind in Tokyo.
We arrived in Kyoto only 2.5 hours later, having travelled nearly 275 miles plus getting a nap in. Not a bad way to travel when this is typically a 4 hour car ride complete with blood boiling traffic back home. A short connection on an express train from a very nice station in Kyoto brought us to the Arishyama JR station slightly west of the city area. This area is very reminiscent of the suburban parts of Kamakura, and the way that the Shinto and Buddhist shrines and temples are folded into the more contemporary residential aspects of the city follows suit too.
We loosely followed the walking/biking itinerary proposed by japan-guide, starting with a visit to the monkey park. If anyone attempts to visit this park, be warned that there is a several hundred foot incline involved along switchback paths in the woods. The payoff is worth it, to be able to walk around with the monkeys (don't actually touch them or anything) and feed them through a fence is a pretty cool experience.
Kyoto day two started with a great breakfast at the Amazon Cafe (the best cup of coffee either of us had had up until this point), which was down the street from our hotel. While the city is serviced by a subway, most of the tourist destinations are accessible by bus. the 100 and 206 lines were our best friends for getting to the starting point of our walking tour, again suggested by japan guide. The nice thing about doing the eastern walking tour of Kyoto is that you can pretty much find your way back to the bus route whenever you get tired or bored of what you're doing. We skipped some of the items along the route, but we pretty much made it to the end of the suggested route by the middle of the afternoon. There's a lot of the same on this tour (shrines and temples built into the wooded hillsides), but what's really nice is that nearly half of the route is serviced by the philosophers path, which is a nice walk along a canal. On a hot day, which it was, this was an especially nice way to spend time with your traveling companion.
We wrapped up a bit earlier than we thought we might, ended up eating a late lunch, and then booked it to the train station to catch a non-reserved Shinkansen back to Tokyo a couple hours ahead of our planned departure time. No views of Fuji this time. The haze was far too thick...
By the time this journey had come to it's conclusion, we were both very glad to be back at our Tokyo base of operations, where we could clean up properly and change into more than the clothes we had packed into my day pack. If we were to go again, I think we might plan a bit differently, but the adventure we had for the two days we were there was certainly memorable as it was.
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