Fushimi Inari shrine is one of the most popular place in Kyoto in these days. Fushimi Inari is famous for its 1000 holy red Torii gates, like this picture.
The area of this shrine is all of Mt Inari, so if you want to visit the most holiest and deep place of this Inari, you have to walk up to the top of mountain, it takes you 4 hours for up and down. But don’t worry. Most beautiful part of this shrine is “Senbon-torii”, about 100m walk from the beginning. I recommend you to walk 10 minutes more from Senbon torii. You would find a pond. You should turn back from there.
[At the top of Mt. Inari, you could find this sign]
If you visit to Fushimi Inari, you would have many choices to go next. Taking a JR train and visit to Arashiyama is one option. Taking a Keihan train and visit to Sanjusangendo temple is very nice. But here I recommend you to visit to Tofukuji temple. Tofukuji temple is so gorgeous. You can see the top picture of this page, The check board style moss garden is quite modern. This garden is in the Honbou. Honbou architecture surrounded by 4 different types modern gardens.
After Tofukuji Honbou, you should go to the “Tsutenkyo bridge garden in Tofukuji. There are more than 2000 maple trees in the garden. Of course they will turn to red those leaves in late autumn, so beautiful. But in the summer you could see all those green view of maple leaves. I like the young green maple best in the early summer.
This tour plan will take almost 3 hours if you can walk normal enough.
