Arashiyama Bamboo Grove
An avenue of giant bamboo that closes off the sky, west of the city.
Duration
30 min – 1 hr
Best time
Before 7.30am
Open
Every day
Entry price
Free
The path runs about five hundred metres between Tenryu-ji temple and the Okochi Sanso villa. The moso bamboo rises twenty metres, packed tightly enough to close off the sky, and the sound of the wind through it is on Japan's official list of a hundred soundscapes.
It is a lane, not a forest: it takes ten minutes to walk and photographs badly, because the contrast between the dark floor and the bright canopy is more than a camera can hold. You come for the sound as much as the picture.
Getting there
JR Sagano line, Saga-Arashiyama station, ten minutes on foot. The Randen tram sets you down closer, at Arashiyama.
Rules on site
After nine the path is a continuous stream and stopping becomes impossible. The Arashiyama district deserves the whole morning: the bamboo grove alone does not justify the journey.
Other places in Kyoto
- Fushimi Inari-taishaTen thousand vermilion torii tunnelling up an entire mountain.
- Kinkaku-ji, the Golden PavilionTwo floors covered in gold leaf, set on a pond that doubles them.
- Kiyomizu-deraA timber veranda built without a nail, hanging over the city, and the waterfall the temple is named after.
- GionThe tea house quarter, timber lanes and lanterns, where geiko still pass in the late afternoon.