Home > Osaka > Kyoto and Nara Day Tour Including Golden Pavilion and Todai-ji Temple from Osaka
USD $163.00
Kyoto and Nara Day Tour Including Golden Pavilion and Todai-ji Temple from Osaka
Osaka, Japan
See the main sights of both Kyoto and Nara in one day! This day trip from Osaka takes you on a morning tour of Nijo Castle, Kinkaku-ji Temple (Golden Pavilion), Kyoto Imperial Palace and Kitano Tenman-gu Shrine. After a Japanese lunch, visit landmarks in nearby Nara, home to Kasuga Shrine and the impressive Great Buddha of Todai-ji Temple. Upon hotel pickup, your guide will accompany you by motor coach, JR Rail and Kintetsu Rail, and inform you about the cultural treasures in each historical capital.
Meet your guide upon hotel pickup and head to JR Osaka Station. Board the JR Special Rapid Service or Rapid Service (non-reserved seating) to Kyoto, Japan's former capital and the emperor's residence from 794 until 1868. Now the country's seventh largest city, modern Kyoto remains steeped in traditional culture. Your morning tour of the city’s main highlights includes approximately 45 minutes at each site.
Start at Nijo Castle, a former residence of the Tokugawa Shogun. Completed in 1626, Nijo Castle is noted for the contrast of its solemn appearance and gorgeous interiors. (Note: When Nijo Castle is closed you’ll visit Ryoan-ji Temple instead.)
After touring the castle, head to nearby Kinkaku-ji Temple, Kyoto's most popular Zen Buddhist temple. Home to perhaps the world's most authentic and exquisite Japanese garden, the temple features the celebrated Golden Pavilion whose wooden structure is completely covered in gold leaf.
Next, visit Kyoto Imperial Palace, which clearly demonstrates the Japanese taste for purity, simplicity and tranquility. With your guide you’ll gain exclusive access to the former residence of the Emperor of Japan before the capital moved to Tokyo. When the Kyoto Imperial Palace is closed, the tour will visit Kitano Shrine (Kitano Tenman-gu) instead. This famous shrine, known as the god of study, has been designated a national treasure and is particularly worth seeing for its Japanese plum blossoms and colored leaves.
Enjoy a Japanese set meal for lunch (vegetarian option available) before you’re off to Nara, located in the Kinai Plain less than one hour from Kyoto. Due to its past as the first permanent capital of Japan, established in the year 710 at Heijo, the city now known as Nara remains full of iconic sites.
See Todai-ji Temple, one of Japan's most famous and historically significant temples, constructed in the 8th century. In its huge precincts are various national treasures of Japan. Step foot in the Daibutsuden (Great Buddha Hall), one of the world's largest wooden buildings, before a stop at Kasuga Shrine. This most famous and beautiful Shinto shrine features some 3,000 antique stone and bronze lanterns.
Before your day trip ends, your guide will take you to Nara Nagomikan, Nara’s biggest souvenir shop where you’ll have the opportunity to browse for about 20 minutes. Here, you’ll find a variety of food products, sweets, and goods exclusive to Nara. Afterward, head to Kintetsu-Nara Station for the rail ride back to Osaka-Namba Station on the Kintetsu line (non-reserved seat) with your guide. Upon arrival back in Osaka, you'll make your own way back to your hotel.
Very professional and knowledgable staff. I highly recommend for family whom visits Japan for the first time. Hatchi is tour staff with full knowledge about the places and history of Japan. She made people so excited during the trip. We laughed all the time with her stories. Two thumbs up.
Review by: John P, March 2018
Covered all the points mentioned in the tour. The different guides were all informative and cheerful and with a sense of humour. This is a good tour, for us it was rather long and a little tiring, but when you have only a day to discover Kyoto and Nara. it was worthwhile.
Review by: Yuk Kwai L, January 2018
Attentive guides. Nicely paced tour
Review by: kenny.zone2, December 2017
This tour was amazing!
Review by: MaMargarita S, December 2017
I have always loved Kyoto and Nara! This tour is really something that I will take over and over again everytime I travel to Osaka.
Review by: Chee Seng W, December 2017
Amazing trip and well worth the money paid. We enjoyed it very much. Tq
Review by: enosiglia, November 2017
We totally enjoyed this tour. Tour scorts were very professional, knowledgeable and very helpful. Highly recommended
Review by: rochellecsantiago, November 2017
Probably not ideal for those with older people. The tour guide in Nara didnt wait. By the time we catch up, she’s finished explaining. The group was 45. There were 3 buses that day, and the lunch was in only 1 restaurant that couldnt accommodate everyone so some had to wait.
Review by: Paralee K, November 2017
good service
Review by: Richard C, October 2017
We really enjoyed our tour. Collection arrangements at the Granvia hotel were smooth. Coach was comfortable and the toilet stop en route to Kyoto was welcomed by some. The staff en route were fine and our guide, when we collected her, was very pleasant, knowledgeable and spoke good English. The World Heritage sights we visited were all amazing and there is no way we could have fitted them in a day on our own . Lunch, having been described in the booking literature as 'Japanese', was a rather unexciting buffet that seemed to be based on fried chicken. That was the only real disappointment of the day. A simple bento box would have been much better. The afternoon visit to Nara Park and the giant Buddha was good, though it transpired that this was the busy time of year for Japanese school trips and the place was packed. We were staying in Osaka and the journey back there, accompanied by our guide, by train was smooth. A long day, thoroughly enjoyable and I would not hesitate to recommend it to others.
Review by: Andrew B, September 2017
As an independent traveler I have enjoyed taking many tours offered by or through Viator. This was such a poor experience that I would recommend people skip altogether. The coordination and logistics made no sense -- meet 6:45 am at a hotel in Osaka in order to stand for a 45 minute train ride to Kyoto in order to wait 20 minutes for a huge coach bus in order to pick up more people in Kyoto after being unable to find a Kyoto and Nara Day Tour ... from Kyoto option, in order to finally begin the first stop around 9:15 am. The group was too big 75-85 people? and the first stop - Nijo Castle in Kyoto - consisted of walking around the garden before walking through the Castle. The tour itself consisted of walking to one room, hearing one sentence explained from the tour guide, and then moving to the next room with no opportunity to ask questions or explore in more depth or detail. If your goal is to simply tell friends and family that you 'saw' the selected sights in Kyoto and Nara, and you don't have any preferences for transportation or travel i.e. you don't feel comfortable arranging your own transportation and are okay with going at a snails pace through train stations and bus terminals with a large group then you might be fine with this tour. I left the tour in disappointment and had an amazing time on my own in both Kyoto and Nara - something I would recommend to every single traveller over this tour.
Review by: Grado, August 2017
The deer in Nara are very friendly and will bow before you give them a cracker which you can buy onsite. You must be firm though or they will overtake you with their aggression. I saw several folks just throw the crackers in the air out of fear when the deer descended on them. Conversely, a firm person saying NO! Was able to get them to bow before he fed them. The Temple tour was interesting. Golden Pavilion packed with school kids.
Review by: Pavel A, July 2017
Great tour and tour guides. How ever drop-off location is bad, a large group of people that stayed in Granvia hotel and had a big trouble to get back to the hotel, as the station is humongous and under ground, you will not be able to use google maps. Would be a 5star review if they provided at least some directions how to get back when we get off the subway.
Review by: Judith I, July 2017
Excellent tour, however it was very difficult to understand the words due to the normal accent between Japanese and English. This could have been totally corrected if we had individual headsets so we could hear better. It is not ever possible for the guide to consistently hold a speaker directly in front of her/his mouth all the time. Also the constant and quick movement when a guide is talking while facing the other way with many followers makes it extremely hard to hear things. There are dozens/hundreds of people visiting the same sites. Something should be done to improve hearing, No matter how great the guide, without proper equipment it is always hard to hear. Please make this change.
Review by: Rudolf C, June 2017
The trip is a absolut must_br/_ .you can enjoy the magic of japanese cultur, frlom the religiouse as well from the architectual side.perfectly organised .
Review by: Jennifer U, May 2017
everything is ok except for the lunch which was close to terrible even if it was buffet. I also don and #39;t understand why u allow kids below 5 to join this tour? They were crying the whole time we were on the bus and our tour guide has a very soft voice, we can hardly hear her over the crying young kids!
Review by: Alicia D, April 2017
Very informative. The architecture is beautiful. Not ideal for children.
Review by: Liza C, April 2017
I don and #39;t think it and #39;s worth the price you pay. Too rushed. We were only given 30 minutes to explore visited places. I suggest to better explore on your own if you can.
Review by: joebarendt, February 2017
The morning Kyoto was excellent. Good information, and a very well organized tour. Lunch and the afternoon Nara left something to be desired. Lunch was good, but of course was packaged with place were we could buy souvenirs. The actual tour locales were good, but were given too little time at the sites. Then boarded on to the bus so we could go to a shop to buy souvenirs again!
Review by: Jennifer T, January 2017
The morning part of the tour had too many stops so that there was not enough time at any of them. The lunch was mediocre. The afternoon in Nara was excellent
Review by: Teresa C, January 2017
Very beautiful scenery, great experience. Love Japan.
Review by: Erickson M, January 2017
Beautiful place. Definitely worth a visit.
Review by: Ivy L, January 2017
The Kyoto trip was pretty rush.. We wasn and #39;t give enough time to have a good look at the different places and for photo-taking.
Review by: Edwin Ong, December 2016
The sights of Kyoto and Nara was fantastic. Be careful about which day the Imperial Palace closes. Would be better if lunch was more traditional Japanese. I didn't signup for the full day Kyota tour as it was just full of temples.
Review by: Ajith B, December 2016
It was good.. But it was indeed packing a lot of things into one. A sneek peek of Kyoto and Nara with most of the important sights covered
Review by: abdu11ah.a1saye9h, December 2016
Great tour although is was a very FAST one. Some Don't expect to cover everything at the sites you visit unless you are a fast walker. The tour guide at Nara was great gave us a lot of info and quizzes as well. That was entertaining. Thanks.
Review by: Charo and Lyn, November 2016
The tour was informative, but there were parts of it that was rushed. Extending the number of hours would help a lot. An hour extension should be enough.
Review by: Wei Huang M, November 2016
The tour was great, the tour guide however was not speaking very clearly during the trip and we had difficulty hearing her. The lunch buffet was enjoyable and we had fun visiting the various temples and taking photo with deers at Nara.
Review by: Michael V, October 2016
Great cultural activity - Great guides - pretty amazing experience
Review by: Franklyn D, October 2016
The day started with a commute to the pick up point in Granvia hotel umeda station. They were a little bit late, but organised in handling the time. We took a tour bus to kyoto,stopped in 3 significant places in kyoto. Then lunch buffet, food selections are good but felt rushed because of the constraint on the time to connect for the next tour to Nara. Very good tour guide,speaks good english as well. Our guide was KC. Tour ended with a drop at Nara train station and still guided by the sunrise tours staff all the way back to osaka. Overall, a good trip and experience.
Review by: Na Young K, October 2016
- Guide is amazing and very well organized_br/_ - 11 hour tour can be a bit tiring for seniors._br/_ - There are too many people joining the tour so It can be a bit too crowded
Review by: Christine M, October 2016
Fantastic day, tour guide was wonderful highly recommed
Review by: Bandana C, August 2016
It was a great time. Tour guide was excellent and very professional. Love to go to the tour again.
Review by: brymar, July 2016
The tour guides were excellent, very knowledgeable. Our family enjoyed seeing and learning about Japan's history visiting Kyoto and Nara.
Review by: chuck4664, July 2016
Great tour and guide spoke English very good.
Review by: ozgun k, July 2016
This tour was amazing!
Review by: Horst P, July 2016
Excellent trip
Review by: Anna G, July 2016
Very well organised, tour guides very informative and entertaining, which is an additional plus. Everything was run smoothly, as per description. Will certainly use Viator again.
Review by: CHI-WHEI L, July 2016
Excellent tour of Kyoto. Our tour guide in the morning, Amy, was very knowledgeable about Kyoto and its history. She spoke English very well and was easy to understand. We ended our morning tour of Kyoto and had lunch. As the tour then separated into several different afternoon tours, we didn't really have enough time for lunch buffetas it felt rushed. We had another tour guide for the afternoon, KC. He was very knowledgeable and politeand he shared his knowledge of Nara's history with us. Overall, a great tour. but bewarea lot of walking involved.
Review by: Rhina Rose D, July 2016
Fushimi Inari Shrine in Kyoto should be included in this tour!! That was the only thing missing for me :( Everything else was great! Very organized tour, lots of good info from the guides, buffet lunch was good too and the coach was nice, clean and had comfortable seats.
Review by: Aileen L, June 2016
Everything went well from booking the tour to the whole tour itself. It just went smooth. Everything was on time from leaving the Hotel Granvia to arriving and leaving the spots. At first i was hesitant to book a tour with viator but now that i had, i would surely do so again on my next trip.
Review by: ASHLEY K, June 2016
Informative guides. Kyoto male guide was funny which is a good thing. At Nara, they changed to another female guide. Food was bad.. Was told at the tourist information counter that this tour we booked online was expensive..-_-
Review by: Gerald B, June 2016
The tour operator JTB Sunrise Tours is superb its experience shows. The tour guides are articulate, informative, lively, and very accommodating the attractions are all as beautiful and inspiring as advertised the pace is moderately brisk yet not punishing -- and well-organized, despite the crowds of other tourists the luncheon features a good selection of hearty fare. This particular tour packs in the key highlights if you need to hit two birds with one stone i.e., get a flavor of two nearby cities within a single day. A great experience for travelers of all stripes.
Review by: chiano87, June 2016
Tour guide was extremely slow in showing around
Review by: Edison G, May 2016
it was raining and golden week so it was very crowded
Review by: Robert L, May 2016
Tour overall was good, very very knowledgeable guides however did not appreciate the fact that part of the itinerary was changed without notification. We signed up for the tour based on what temples, shrines etc we will be seeing and come to find out on the day we will not see half of them. We however loved Noriko Yamaguchi our guide and she was one of the nicest and most helpful guides in any of the tours we have taken in Japan.
Review by: QING L, May 2016
not worth what I paid
Review by: John P, April 2016
While a long day it was quite satisfying. Never got tired of seeing palaces and shrines as each had its own unique history and visual stimulation. Guide was full of humor, insight and historical knowledge.
Review by: Frank, April 2016
Tour was nice. The tour guide Mr. Harada explains in details the places we visited. Lunch was good too. Time was just too tight but overall it was great.
Review by: Jessy, March 2016
Yuki, our guide during the kyoto morning tour, was really good. She explained everything very well in English. The 3 stops were great except for the crowds at golden pavilion. The nara afternoon tour was also educational and we even saw cherry blossoms in full bloom at todaiji temple. KC, our guide, was really fun. A great experience to remember!
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