Kyoto Nature pictures

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Enjoy a traditional tea ceremony, feed wild monkeys and explore World Heritage-listed temples and shrines in this historically rich Japanese city.

Watch as park staff feed about 130 wild snow monkeys on Arashiyama Mountain, or climb inside a cage and feed them yourself.

With picturesque blossom gardens and a golden hall considered a national treasure, this temple is a historic monument devoted to bliss and tranquility.


Explore this hillside temple which features a statue with an unusual history, connected wooden walkways, a bathhouse and a steam house.  


Explore this hillside temple which features a statue with an unusual history, connected wooden walkways, a bathhouse and a steam house.  

Watch as park staff feed about 130 wild snow monkeys on Arashiyama Mountain, or climb inside a cage and feed them yourself.

Take a stroll or a bicycle ride through this sublime forest to experience the otherworldly tranquility created by filtered sunlight and rustling bamboo leaves.

Take a stroll or a bicycle ride through this sublime forest to experience the otherworldly tranquility created by filtered sunlight and rustling bamboo leaves.

Take a stroll or a bicycle ride through this sublime forest to experience the otherworldly tranquility created by filtered sunlight and rustling bamboo leaves.

Take a stroll or a bicycle ride through this sublime forest to experience the otherworldly tranquility created by filtered sunlight and rustling bamboo leaves.

This temple borrows its graceful quality from the imperial family. It is home to traditional art, spiritual statues and a bamboo orchard.

Visit the world of the wealthy and powerful shogun, in this opulent 17th-century castle complex.

Charming craft shops, ceremonious teahouses and tiny cafés spill out from the traditional wooden façades of this historic pair of lanes below Kiyomizu-dera Temple.

Take a stroll or a bicycle ride through this sublime forest to experience the otherworldly tranquility created by filtered sunlight and rustling bamboo leaves.

This temple borrows its graceful quality from the imperial family. It is home to traditional art, spiritual statues and a bamboo orchard.

A widow built this temple in 1606 to pay homage to her late warrior husband. Today, it survives as an eye-catching site of tranquility with postcard-pretty gardens.

Visitors come to this ancient site for its pleasant temple but stay to relish the nature and tranquility of its serene Zen garden.

This is a great walk to orient yourself around Kyōto. Stroll along a cherry tree-lined canal and visit shrines, temples, gardens and boutiques.

More than any other site, this shrine is celebrated for the unrivaled autumnal colors of the trees surrounding the spiritual Zen haven.

Art, elaborate gardens and a giant gate await at this temple that stands tall as one of the most important of its kind in the country.