Many foreign guests ask me which season is the best to visit to Kyoto. My answer is “winter”! Of course every seasons are nice. Spring, we have the beautiful cherry blossoms. Cherry blossoms in Kyoto should be the best in the world. Summer, we have many festivals. Especially Gion matsuri festival is one of the 3 biggest festivals in Japan, there are many big floats in the center area, and make parade in the morning of 17th and 24th July. It’s so marvelous. Autumn, you can watch quite beautiful red leaves of Japanese maple. In some temples there are more than 1000 Japanese maple trees in the ground, awesome view!
Then, what in the winter? Just cold. Kyoto is the hot and cold city. In summer more than 38 degrees Celsius and humid. Very very humid. And in winter less than 0 degree Celsius in sometime. We call the coldness of Kyoto as ‘sokobie’. Sokobie means “coldness coming from the bottom”. Not from the sky, not from the air, coming from bottom. It’s horrible. So not many travelers would come to Kyoto in winter. No cherry blossoms, no festivals, no red leaves. Just cold. Not many travelers. This is the reason why I say winter is the best season to visit to Kyoto. Not many people on the street means that you can feel good atmosphere of old city. You can meditate in the quiet zen temple. Of course watching some beautiful things is good. But because of such those beautiful things you would lost calm atmosphere in this city. Please think about it. You should feel to the old historical city in the quiet season.
Best regards
