Tokyo, Hakone and four nights in Kyoto, timed against the crowds

Arrive Tokyo

Met at Haneda or Narita and driven in. Haneda is the closer of the two by a wide margin; if your airline offers both for the same money, take Haneda and buy yourself back most of an afternoon.

Nothing is scheduled. The advice we give is to stay upright until a normal bedtime and to eat something at a counter rather than in a restaurant — a bowl of soba standing up in a station basement is a better first meal in this country than anything you could book.

The east side of the city

Asakusa at half past seven, when the approach to Senso-ji belongs to people sweeping it, then east across the river into Kiyosumi and the low streets of Fukagawa, where the timber-and-tile Tokyo that survived both the great earthquake and the war still exists in fragments.

The afternoon is Yanaka: a hillside of small houses, a cemetery full of cherry trees, and a shopping street that sells food to residents rather than souvenirs to visitors. A full private day guide in Tokyo is quoted at ¥60,000 to ¥80,000 for the party, not per person, and that cost sits inside your price rather than beside it.

The west side, and the modern city

Meiji Jingu through the forest gate at opening, then Harajuku, Omotesando and the residential streets behind it, which is where the architecture worth looking at actually is.

The afternoon is yours and the choice is genuine: the Nezu Museum and its garden, the Shimokitazawa second-hand streets, or teamLab, whose adult tickets start at ¥3,600 and rise on peak dates under dynamic pricing — we book a specific slot in advance because the same ticket on the door costs more and may not exist.

A day out of Tokyo

Two choices and no wrong answer. Nikko is roughly two hours north and holds the most heavily decorated religious complex in Japan, set in cedar forest that makes it bearable in summer. Kamakura is under an hour south, sits on the sea, and is the softer day: temples in valleys, a walking trail between them, and lunch by the water.

Neither day includes Mount Fuji, and this is worth saying plainly. Climbing it now costs ¥4,000 on all four trails, requires online pre-registration, and the Yoshida trail is capped at 4,000 climbers a day. A climb needs its own two days and a July or August departure. Seeing the mountain, on the other hand, is a matter of weather, and tomorrow is the better chance.

Tokyo to Hakone, and a ryokan night

Your main luggage goes ahead to Kyoto this morning and reaches the hotel there the following afternoon; you carry an overnight bag. Hakone is a caldera of hot springs an hour and a half south-west, and the day between is a pleasure rather than a transfer: the open-air sculpture museum, the ropeway over the sulphur vents at Owakudani, and the lake, which returns the famous view of Fuji on the days the mountain is out.

The night is a ryokan — tatami, futon laid while you are at dinner, a multi-course kaiseki served in sequence, and hot spring water piped from under the valley. We book properties with private baths attached to the room as well as the communal ones, which solves the tattoo question and the modesty question in one move. The house is named in your quote.

Hakone to Kyoto

Down to Odawara and onto the Shinkansen. For reference, the fastest Nozomi runs Tokyo to Kyoto in 2 hours 13 minutes at ¥14,170 in a reserved seat; joining it at Odawara takes a slice off that. Seats are booked, forward-facing, with the luggage space behind the last row that you cannot get on the day.

Kyoto by early afternoon. The first outing is deliberately gentle: the covered length of Nishiki, then Gion at dusk. One rule there, and it is enforced: since May 2024 visitors are banned from the private lanes off the main streets, with signs threatening fines of up to ¥10,000. Hanamikoji and the main thoroughfares are fine. The narrow side alleys are people’s front doors.

Kyoto: the early morning that makes the city work

Fushimi Inari at half past six. The gates run in a long loop up the hillside and the crowd thins to nothing after the first fifteen minutes of climbing; by nine the lower tunnels are shoulder to shoulder and the photographs are of other people photographing.

Tofuku-ji next, for the bridge and the modernist dry gardens, then a long lunch and the middle of the day indoors — the Kyoto National Museum, or a tea house, or your own room. Late afternoon at Sanjusangen-do, whose ranked hall of gilded figures is indoors rather than in a garden and works at any hour.

Nara

Forty-five minutes south. Nara was the capital before Kyoto was and it holds the bigger objects: the Great Buddha at Todai-ji, housed in a timber hall that is itself worth the trip, and the lantern avenues of Kasuga Taisha in the woods behind it.

The deer are not a petting zoo. They are wild animals conditioned to expect food, they head-butt, and the warning signs are in several languages for a reason. Buy the biscuits if you want, and do not tease.

Back in Kyoto for the evening, which is free.

Arashiyama early, and the quiet north

The bamboo groves at Arashiyama are pleasant at half past seven and unpleasant at ten, and there is nothing more to say about them than that. We go early, walk through to the Okochi Sanso garden, which charges admission and is consequently empty, and take the river back.

The afternoon is the northern temples: the sub-temples of Daitoku-ji, several of which open individually and none of which appear on a coach route, and the stone garden at Ryoan-ji if the day is cool. Note in passing that Kyoto is phasing in two-tier bus fares — roughly ¥350 to ¥400 a ride for visitors against ¥200 for residents with a registered card. You will not meet it on this journey, because you have a car and a driver.

Kyoto to Hiroshima and Miyajima

The Nozomi covers Kyoto to Hiroshima in about an hour and forty minutes. Bags go ahead to Osaka. The Peace Memorial Museum takes the early afternoon and it is not an easy two hours; the exhibition was rebuilt to put personal objects first and it does not editorialise, which is what makes it hard.

Then the ferry to Miyajima in the late afternoon, when the day-trippers are going the other way. The torii stands in the water at high tide and on wet sand at low tide, and which you get is set by the tide table months in advance, so we check it when we fix your dates and put you there for the better one.

Himeji, then Osaka

Himeji is on the line back east and it is the finest surviving castle in Japan — white, original, never burned, and steep inside. Be ready for the ticket: since 1 March 2026 non-residents pay ¥2,500 against ¥1,000 for residents of the city, with under-18s free. It is included in your price, and we would rather you heard the number from us than at the gate. Dual pricing of this kind is spreading across Japanese sites and will not be the last of it.

Osaka by mid-afternoon. It is the least beautiful and the most enjoyable of the three cities on this route, and the evening is spent eating standing up in Shinsekai or Ura-Namba rather than looking at anything.

Depart Osaka

Kansai airport is on an artificial island about an hour out and the road can be slow, so departures before eleven get an early start rather than a rushed one. Your forwarded luggage is at the hotel and has been since the day you arrived.