Marc's Public Blog - Trips to other locations

We randomly stopped by a temple on the way to Nijo Castle. Unfortunately, Nijo Castle doesn't allow any pictures inside its rooms, so I only have pictures from the outside.

it was schoolkid week, they were all over :)

it had nice gardens

We then rushed to the Kyoto Palace to get there just in time for our guided tour (in English, no less). The guide was very good, and the palace was very nice to visit (much much nicer than the Tokyo Palace tour which is totally something you can skip):

The palace is inside, it's big :)

On the way to the west side temples, we found some random ones on the way :)

We then went to Daitoku-ji which actually houses several sub-temples which each charge their own admission. To be honest, with the rest of what we saw, this was neither worth the time, nor the money, but eh, we were there, so we looked and paid the multiple fees:

Next was Kinkaku-ji, aka the Golden Pavillion, arguably the prettiest and most popular temple in Kyoto:

From there, we totally skipped Ryoan-ji since we didn't need to see another temple which was mostly known for its rock garden (thanks Arturo), and we went Toji-in, off the beaten path, not well known, but quite nice and worth the visit. Among other things, it had a great garden.

Last was Ninna-ji, which unfortunately was half closed that day, but what we did see was worth it.

we are so very sorry that we're working on the grounds

the cable, in case you're wondering, is a lightening rod

By then, it was 17:00 again, so most temples were closed, but Kitano Tenmangu closed at 18:00, so we went there to see the plum trees, but it had much more:

plums were there, but not in season yet

While biking back to our room, we found a grocery store, and ended up getting dinner for ourselves :)

dinner! :)

By then, I had also returned the electric bikes from Rent a cycle Kyoto Kenbunroku