Nara

Kansai, Japan · City

Japan's first permanent capital keeps a giant bronze Buddha inside Todai-ji, one of the largest wooden buildings in the world. Some 1,400 wild deer roam the park and they are not tame: over a hundred people a year are injured by them, mostly during the autumn rut. At dusk, the free wooden veranda of Nigatsu-do, hung on the hillside, looks over the Great Buddha's roof and the whole basin once the tour groups have left for Kyoto.

The essentials

Getting there

Train — Direct train from Kyoto or Osaka, very accessible

What it is genuinely strong in

👑 Imperial heritage

Frequently asked questions about Nara

What to do in Nara: 74 activities

• Nara Park and its sacred deer 2 h must-see

  Around 1,400 wild deer, protected as a national natural monument, roam the park freely, and you may feed them only shika senbei crackers (200 yen, from the official stalls). They are not tame: more than a hundred people a year are hurt by bites, butts and antler gores, above all during the September-to-November rut and when does have fawns between May and July. Give them no other food and no plastic bags, do not wave a cracker without handing it over, and do not crouch down to their eye level.

• Sunset from the Nigatsu-do veranda 1 h must-see

  The wooden gallery clinging to the hillside above Todai-ji is open day and night and costs nothing: from it you see the Great Buddha Hall's roof, the park and the whole Nara basin with the sun going down behind it. At dusk the oil lanterns along the corridor are lit and almost nobody is left, because the tour groups have already headed back to Kyoto.

• The Ashura of Kofuku-ji at the National Treasure Museum 1 h must-see

  Carved in dry lacquer in 734, three-faced and six-armed with the face of a worried teenager, the Ashura is one of Japan's most loved sculptures and it is here, five minutes from the station. The museum opens 9:00-17:00 (last entry 16:45) and costs 900 yen; a combined ticket with the Central and Eastern Golden Halls is 1,600.

• The Great Buddha of Todai-ji Temple 1.5 h must-see

  One of the largest wooden buildings in the world, home to a giant bronze Buddha.

• Horyu-ji Temple 2.5 h

  On the edge of the city: the oldest wooden buildings in the world, from the seventh century, and a World Heritage Site in its own right, separate from the central Nara group.

• Asuka-dera and Japan's oldest Buddha 0.75 h Asuka · 55 min

  The first full-scale Buddhist temple ever built in Japan, founded in 596, with a bronze Buddha cast in 609 that still sits where it was made: cracked and pieced back together after several fires, and the monks let you photograph it and explain the story without rushing. It is small and plain, nothing like the Great Buddha of Nara, and that is the point.

• Bugaku and kagura at Kasuga Taisha 1.5 h

  Kasuga Taisha preserves an unbroken lineage of bugaku, the court dance imported from the continent in the 8th century, and performs it on several dates through the year, with the Kasuga Wakamiya On-Matsuri in December as the great occasion. This is the music and dance the Nara court heard, played on the spot it was written for.

• Chagayu, breakfast rice gruel in tea 1.25 h

  Rice simmered in roasted hojicha tea: Nara's everyday food since the monks of Todai-ji ate it before the Omizutori rites, and still a household breakfast here. Try it at Machiya Cafe Kanna, in a Naramachi townhouse with a garden, for 1,000 yen with charcoal-grilled persimmon mochi, or at Sabo Non-non for 1,350 as a full set. It is mild and savoury: anyone expecting a hearty bowl of rice will be underwhelmed.

• Chugu-ji and its pensive Miroku 1 h Ikaruga · 40 min

  Next to Horyu-ji's eastern precinct, a convent with a single image: the 7th-century camphor-wood pensive bodhisattva, archaic smile and finger at the cheek, seen from a few metres away in near darkness. Separate ticket from Horyu-ji, 600 yen, 9:00-16:30 (to 16:00 from October to late March).

• Climbing Mount Miwa from Omiwa Shrine 3 h Sakurai · 50 min

  Mount Miwa has no hall at the summit because the mountain itself is the deity of Omiwa, Japan's oldest shrine. You climb only with permission: fill in a form at the subsidiary Sai Shrine, pay 300 yen and wear the white sash they give you; no photographs, no eating and nothing to drink but water. Applications are taken only between 9:00 and 14:00 and you must be down by 16:00; it is about two hours round trip and climbing is barred on certain dates.

• Cycling Asuka between burial mounds and rice fields 6 h Asuka · 50 min

  Asuka was the capital before Nara and is now a rice valley scattered with tombs, temples and carved stones, with a signposted loop you can ride in a day. Bikes are rented beside Kintetsu Asuka station, 8:30-17:00, cash only, for about 1,200 yen a day (1,700 for electric, worth it because there are hills). From Nara it is roughly fifty minutes with a change at Kashiharajingu-mae.

• Hase-dera and its peonies 2.5 h Sakurai · 70 min

  You reach the main hall by a roofed stairway of 399 steps lined with peonies: between late April and early May some seven thousand plants of 150 varieties flower, and this is the most famous place in Japan to see them. Inside stands an eleven-headed Kannon nearly twelve metres tall, the largest wooden one in the country. Admission 500 yen, open 8:30-17:00 in spring and summer, no cards accepted; fifteen minutes on foot from Hasedera station.

• Heijo Imperial Palace Site 2.5 h

  A 120-hectare open field where the palace of Japan's 8th-century capital stood, with the Suzakumon gate and the throne hall rebuilt full size, plus the Tōin garden, the oldest palace garden in Japan. Entry is free and it is a ten-minute walk from Yamato-Saidaiji, but be warned: it is a vast treeless plain with the buildings far apart and a railway line running straight through it, so it disappoints anyone expecting a standing palace.

• Hokke-do and Kaidan-in, Todai-ji's smaller halls 1.5 h

  Hokke-do (also called Sangatsu-do) is the oldest building at Todai-ji, from the 8th century, and holds a dry-lacquer Kannon over three metres tall surrounded by statues of the same age; Kaidan-in keeps the four clay Heavenly Kings, among the finest sculpture of the Nara period. Each hall costs 800 yen on top of the Great Buddha ticket and both close at 16:00, well before the grounds do.

• Imai-cho, the merchant town people still live in 2.5 h Kashihara · 45 min

  A grid six hundred by three hundred metres holding some 1,500 buildings, around five hundred of them merchant houses from the 17th to 19th centuries: it was a walled self-governing town that minted its own currency and grew so rich that seven of every ten coins in Yamato were said to be in Imai. These are private homes, not a museum; only a few, such as the Imanishi house of 1650 and the Hana-iraka centre, can be entered. It is ten minutes on foot from Yagi-Nishiguchi station.

• Ishibutai burial mound 1 h Asuka · 55 min

  Japan's largest stone burial chamber, 7th century and attributed to the nobleman Soga no Umako: its earth mound washed away centuries ago, leaving thirty granite blocks exposed, one of them over seventy tonnes, and you can duck inside. Open 9:00-17:00 daily (ticket desk to 16:45); the fee was revised on 1 April 2026, so check the current price on the village website.

• Kasuga Taisha Shrine 1.5 h

  Thousands of stone and bronze lanterns line a sacred forest path.

• Mantoro, the 3,000 lanterns of Kasuga 2 h only Setsubun (3 February) and 14-15 August

  Three nights a year - the day of Setsubun, which falls on 2 or 3 February depending on the year, and 14 and 15 August - the roughly three thousand lanterns of Kasuga shrine are lit at once among the forest: some two thousand stone ones set along the paths and some thousand hung from the eaves of the cloister. None of the sources consulted says what metal the hanging ones are made of.

• Omizutori at Nigatsu-do 2 h only 1-14 Mar

  From 1 to 14 March, monks run along the temple gallery with giant torches throwing sparks over the crowd: a ritual that has not been interrupted for a single year since 752.

• Sake tasting at the Harushika brewery 1 h

  The Imanishi Seibei house has been making Harushika sake since 1884 in the middle of Naramachi and runs the cheapest, least salesy tasting in Japan: 500 yen for five different sakes and you keep the glass. Open 10:00-17:00, cash only, closed over New Year and in midsummer; large groups must give notice. Tours of the brewhouse itself run only on February weekends, when fermentation is under way.

• Shin-Yakushi-ji and its Twelve Heavenly Generals 1 h

  A single 8th-century hall, with no barriers or glass, where a seated Yakushi Buddha is ringed by twelve life-size clay guardians, the oldest surviving set in Japan and startlingly theatrical. Open 9:00-17:00, 600 yen, cash only; it sits in the Takabatake district a twenty-minute walk from the park and is usually half empty.

• The annual Shosoin Exhibition 2 h booking only 17 days between late October and November

  For seventeen days a year the Imperial Household Agency takes about sixty objects out of the Shosoin repository at Todai-ji: mother-of-pearl inlaid lutes, Persian glass, masks and documents from Emperor Shomu's household that have spent thirteen centuries in the dark. In 2026 it runs 24 October to 9 November at the Nara National Museum, with timed tickets you must buy in advance (2,000 yen) and long queues between noon and 15:00.

• Todai-ji's three August nights, and which one is free 2 h only from 13 to 15 August

  On 15 August, from seven to half past nine in the evening, Todai-ji lines some two thousand five hundred lanterns along the path to the Great Buddha: this is the Manto Kuyo-e, the offering of ten thousand lights. But the detail almost nobody mentions concerns the nights before. On the 13th and 14th there is night viewing from seven to nine and it is FREE, whereas on the night of the 15th, the lantern night, the usual admission is charged. And on all three nights the kanso-mado is opened, the latticed window in the facade through which the Great Buddha's face can be seen from the approach without entering the hall: at night, lit from within, it is the image you remember. Do not confuse this with the Mantoro at Kasuga shrine, which is a different thing in a different place. Nor is it true that the window opens only twice a year: Nara tourism says it is several times, among them the small hours of 1 January. On the 13th at seven there is also a memorial service and numbers may be limited. Neither of the two sources consulted publishes the 2027 dates, but these are fixed.

• Yakushi-ji Temple 1.5 h

  A UNESCO World Heritage temple founded in the 7th century, celebrated for its original three-story East Pagoda and the Yakushi Nyorai triad.

• A night at Tsukihitei in the Kasuga forest 14 h booking

  A tiny ryokan set inside the Kasugayama primeval forest, behind the shrine and ten minutes by car from the centre: kaiseki dinner, two private baths (one built entirely of hinoki cypress) and nothing audible at night but the woods. It has very few rooms and needs booking well ahead; it is among the most expensive places to sleep in Nara and has no hot-spring water, so what you are paying for is the silence, not an onsen.

• Asuka's puzzling carved stones 2 h Asuka · 55 min

  Scattered across the fields are some twenty carved 7th-century rocks whose purpose nobody has settled: the Kameishi turtle in the middle of a paddy, the channelled Sakafuneishi, the faces of the Saruishi beside an imperial tomb. They sit in the open, are free, and string together nicely by bike; the Asuka Historical Museum (350 yen, closed Mondays) lays out the theories without selling any of them as fact.

• Calligraphy ink (sumi) workshop 1.5 h booking

  Nara produces around 90% of Japan's calligraphy ink; at a house founded in 1577 the mixture of soot and animal glue can be seen and kneaded.

• Gango-ji and its 6th-century roof tiles 1 h

  A World Heritage site hidden inside Naramachi: part of the Gokuraku-do roof is still covered with tiles brought from the original temple in Asuka, the oldest in Japan, and you can pick them out by their reddish colour. Open 9:00-17:00 (last entry 16:30), closed Mondays, 700 yen (800 during special exhibitions).

• Hokki-ji among the cosmos fields 1.5 h Ikaruga · 45 min

  The other World Heritage piece in Ikaruga: a 24-metre three-storied pagoda finished around 706, the oldest of its type in Japan, in a tiny precinct almost nobody bothers to reach. Admission is 500 yen and it opens 8:30-17:00 (to 16:30 from 4 November to 21 February); in October the surrounding fields fill with cosmos, which is when the detour from Horyu-ji really pays off.

• Isonokami Jingu and the religious city of Tenri 2.5 h Tenri · 30 min

  Isonokami is one of the oldest shrines in the country and the starting point of the Yamanobe-no-michi trail, with roosters running loose in the woods and the 4th-century seven-branched sword among its treasures, though that is not on public display. Fifteen minutes away, Tenri is the world headquarters of the Tenrikyo religion: a covered arcade over a kilometre long, enormous black-roofed halls and thousands of followers in black happi jackets. It is a living community, not a set piece: you enter the precinct barefoot and quietly.

• Kakinoha-zushi, narazuke and Miwa somen 1.5 h

  Sushi wrapped in persimmon leaf to preserve it, pickles cured in sake lees and the somen noodles of Miwa, the birthplace of this kind of noodle in Japan.

• Kashihara Jingu and the tomb of Emperor Jimmu 2 h Kashihara · 45 min

  A huge free shrine dedicated to Jimmu, the legendary first emperor, with fifty hectares of woodland and the tomb attributed to him a kilometre away, sealed off and administered by the Imperial Household Agency like every imperial tomb. Worth knowing that it is not ancient: it was built in 1890 and enlarged by mass volunteer labour in 1940 for the empire's 2,600th anniversary, at the height of state nationalism.

• Kasuga Wakamiya On-Matsuri 4 h only 15-18 Dec

  From 15 to 18 December, a period procession and ancient performing arts held without interruption since 1136, Intangible Cultural Heritage.

• Kasuga's Man'yo Botanical Garden 1 h

  A garden belonging to Kasuga Shrine holding the three hundred plants named in the Man'yoshu, Japan's oldest poetry anthology, each with a ceramic plaque bearing its poem. The best of it is the wisteria trellis: two hundred plants of twenty varieties trained at eye level, in flower from mid-April to early May. Admission 500 yen, open 9:00-16:30 (entry to 16:00), closed Tuesdays from June to March.

• Kasugayama primeval forest and Mount Wakakusa 3 h

  A forest where nothing has been logged or hunted since the year 841, walkable on a circuit of about three hours that climbs Mount Wakakusa and brings you back with the whole city at your feet.

• Koriyama castle ruins and their cherry trees 1.5 h Yamatokoriyama · 15 min

  There is no keep, but there are walls, moats and the donjon platform turned into a viewpoint, all free to enter: gravestones and even an upside-down Buddhist statue were reused in the masonry and are signposted. About a thousand cherry trees cover it in late March, and during the Oshiro Matsuri (24 March to 7 April in 2026) there are night illuminations, a costume parade and a goldfish show.

• Muro-ji, the women's Koyasan 2.5 h Uda · 90 min

  A mountain temple among cedars that earned the name women's Koyasan because it admitted women when Mount Koya would not. Its five-storied pagoda, from the late 8th century, is only sixteen metres tall, the smallest outdoor one in Japan; it was rebuilt after a typhoon flattened it. Admission 600 yen, open 8:30-17:00 (9:00-16:00 December to March), reached by bus from Murouguchi-Ono (15 minutes, 500 yen, hourly): check the return times before you go up.

• Nara Tokae, the park by candlelight 2 h only 5-14 Aug

  In August, 20,000 candles light the paths and ponds of the park, with the deer moving among them.

• Nara, cradle of sake 2 h

  At Shoryaku-ji temple the bodaimoto method that gave rise to modern sake was developed; in Naramachi there are historic breweries open for visits and tasting.

• Nara's night panorama from Mount Wakakusa 1.5 h

  Nara is counted among Japan's three great modern night views, but it helps to know how it works: the Wakakusa hillside itself charges 150 yen, closes at 17:00 and is shut altogether from the second Sunday of December to the third Saturday of March. The night view is seen from the Shin-Wakakusayama car park on the Nara Okuyama toll road, reachable only by car or taxi (about twenty minutes from the centre) and itself subject to closing times, so check the toll road's hours before going up.

• Naramachi's lattice house and the migawari monkeys 1 h

  A faithful, free reconstruction of a late-Edo merchant house: you go in barefoot and see exactly why they were so narrow and so deep, with the well, the loft and the light well at the back. Open 9:00-17:00, closed Mondays. On the way out you will understand the red cloth dolls hanging from eaves all over the district: they are migawari-zaru, monkeys that take misfortune in your place, sold for a few hundred yen near the Koshin-do.

• Ochamori, the giant tea bowls of Saidai-ji 1.5 h booking only mid-January, April and October

  An eight-hundred-year-old ceremony in which monks whisk matcha in bowls over thirty centimetres across, so wide that two other people have to hold it for you to drink: it is passed around and everyone ends up laughing. Held in January, April and October at Saidai-ji, three minutes from Yamato-Saidaiji station, for a 4,000-yen offering; same-day tickets exist but booking ahead is advised.

• Ooyamato: the arrows of 4 January and the deity that sailed on the Yamato 2.5 h Tenri · 35 min only 4 January and 1 April

  Ooyamato Jinja sits among the rice fields south of Tenri, almost nobody visits it, and it has two fixed dates and a twentieth-century story you would not expect: four sources agree that a portion of its deity, a bunrei, was enshrined aboard the battleship Yamato, and all four tell it in the past tense. Its founding is traced to the reign of Emperor Sujin in the Nihon Shoki, though every source marks that as tradition; its own website presents it as the oldest shrine in Japan and no independent source repeats the claim, so it is not made here. The first date is 4 January: the archery rite they call Oyumihajime-sai, from one to three in the afternoon, with the boys of the kyudo club of Tenri Minami junior high and the members of the Nara kyudo federation - some forty of them in 2026 and about thirty in 2025. First a bulb-headed arrow is loosed, whistling as it flies, to cleanse the shooting ground, and at the end comes the momote-shiki, a ceremony of the Ogasawara school with the archers dressed in the manner of the Kamakura period. A single source adds that the target stands about twenty metres away, that ten archers loose ten arrows each in the momote-shiki, and that the head priest shoots the first arrow. What is asked for is health through the year and a good harvest. None of the sources consulted gives a heritage designation for the rite, or attendance figures, or what happens if it rains, or any description of what is painted on the target. The second date is 1 April, the Chanchan Matsuri, which is the shrine's great festival and does carry a Nara prefectural designation as intangible folk cultural property, though no source gives the year it was granted: a mikoshi procession that, according to one of them, sets out at two in the afternoon with some two hundred people. The town hall says the name imitates the sound of an instrument struck as the procession passed Nakayama temple, and says so with an it is said. You reach Nagara station and walk five to eight minutes: the three sources that publish it do not agree. There is parking, and the one source that mentions a price says there is none.

• Plum blossom in the Tsukigase gorge 3 h only from mid-February to late March

  Ten thousand white and red plum trees on the slopes above the Kisaragi river, planted centuries ago for dye made from the fruit and designated a scenic place a hundred years ago. The plum festival runs 14 February to 29 March in 2026, with extra buses at weekends. It is within Nara city limits but a long way out: eighty minutes by local bus from the station, or about fifty by car via Yagyu.

• Rokuen, the shelter for injured deer 1 h

  The protection foundation's facility, where deer hit by cars, sick animals and ones that have swallowed plastic are taken in, and where the does give birth. Open 10:00-16:00, entry free with a suggested 100-yen donation, and the panels lay out the real problems without sugar-coating them: around sixty road collisions a year, animals killed by eating bags, and the friction between the fourteen hundred deer and local farmers. In June the area with the newborn fawns and their mothers is opened to visitors.

• Sarusawa pond and the Ukimido pavilion 1.25 h

  Sarusawa pond, below Kofuku-ji, is the classic Nara postcard, although until 2034 what it reflects is the shed covering the pagoda. Ten minutes further on, at Sagi-ike pond, the hexagonal Ukimido pavilion stands over the water and you can walk in and sit down; it is lit at night, free and has no closing time. Both are evening walks through the park, with deer lying around you.

• Shika yose, calling the deer with a horn 0.75 h only weekends in winter, late March and August

  On the Tobihino meadow a musician plays Beethoven's Pastoral on a natural horn and a hundred or two hundred deer come trotting down out of the woods: for over a century they have associated that sound with the acorns handed out afterwards. It lasts about twenty minutes, is free and needs no booking; 10:00 on weekends and holidays in January and February and in late March, 9:30 on a few days in August. Cancelled in bad weather.

• Takigi Noh by the light of the bonfires 2.5 h only the third Friday and Saturday of May

  In May, noh theatre is performed outdoors lit only by bonfires in the grounds of Kofuku-ji, as it was done centuries ago.

• Tanzan Shrine and its thirteen-storied pagoda 2 h Sakurai · 75 min

  The coup that brought down the Soga clan in 645 was plotted on this mountain, and here stands the only thirteen-storied wooden pagoda left in the world, vermilion against a sea of maples. Admission 600 yen, open 8:30-17:00 (last entry 16:30); you get there on Sakurai's community minibus, which runs only a few times a day, and on 3 November they play kemari, the courtly football, in period costume.

• The Ganjin statue unveiling at Toshodai-ji 1.5 h only 5-7 Jun

  For three days a year, on the anniversary of Ganjin's death, Toshodai-ji opens the Miei-do and shows his portrait statue from the 8th century, the oldest of its kind in Japan: a blind old man with closed eyes who reached Japan on his sixth attempt. Numbered tickets are handed out on the day (about 150 per hour) and there is a fee on top of normal admission.

• The Higashimuki, Mochiidono and Sanjo-dori arcades 2 h

  Three linked streets between Kintetsu Nara station and Sarusawa pond: Higashimuki and Mochiidono are roofed and are where people from Nara actually shop, with narazuke pickles, tofu, brushes, calligraphy stationers and neighbourhood cafés. Mind the hours: most places shut between 18:00 and 19:00 and many close one weekday, which is why Nara at night feels deader than it really is.

• The Inabuchi rice terraces 1.5 h Asuka · 60 min

  Three hundred stepped plots on the slope above Asuka, still farmed by village families and maintained by volunteers. In late September the banks turn red with spider lilies just as the rice ripens gold, and on those evenings candles are lit at dusk. These are private fields: look from the paths and do not step into the crop.

• The Nara Hotel, opened 1909 1.5 h

  A hotel opened in 1909 on a rise above the park, its wooden main building with a Japanese roof designed by Tatsuno Kingo, the architect of Tokyo Station. You do not need to stay: the tea lounge and bar are open to the public and still have the fireplace, the original lamps and the piano Einstein played in 1922. Worth walking up for a drink before dinner.

• The Nara Prefectural Office rooftop 0.5 h

  The best free viewpoint in the city is the roof of the prefectural government building, opposite the park: you take the lift up without paying anything and see the Great Buddha Hall, Mount Wakakusa and, on clear days, as far as the Asuka valley. Open 8:30-17:30 on weekdays; at weekends and on holidays, 10:00-17:00 from April to October and only 13:00-17:00 from November to March, with occasional unannounced closures.

• The open plain of the Fujiwara capital 1.5 h Kashihara · 45 min

  The capital stood here from 694 to 710, the first laid out on a Chinese grid and abandoned just sixteen years later for Heijo. Not one building survives: it is a free open field with the post positions marked on the ground and the three sacred Yamato hills on the horizon, sown with rapeseed in spring and three million cosmos in October.

• The Takamatsuzuka and Kitora murals 2 h Asuka · 60 min

  Two 7th-century tombs painted with court ladies, star charts and the four directional animals, unique in Japan. The originals have been removed for conservation: the Takamatsuzuka Mural Hall shows full-size reproductions for 300 yen (9:00-17:00) and the Shijin no Yakata centre at Kitora is free (9:30-17:00), with the real paintings shown only for a few weeks a year.

• The Yagyu road along the Takisaka trail 6 h

  The old road the swordsmen of the Yagyu school took down into Nara: it leaves the park through the Takisaka woods, past Buddhas carved into the rock in the 13th and 14th centuries, and runs some twenty kilometres to Yagyu village, where the Ittoseki sits, a boulder split in two by a single stroke. It is a long day's walking; many people do only the stretch with the rock carvings and turn back, or take the bus from Nara station (about fifty minutes, infrequent) and walk down.

• Toshodai-ji temple 1.5 h

  Founded by the Chinese monk Ganjin, who went blind over his five attempts to cross the sea to reach Japan; its main hall dates from the Nara era itself.

• Uneme Matsuri at Sarusawa pond 3 h only the eve and the night of the autumn moon

  On the night of the autumn full moon Nara remembers a court lady who threw herself into this pond: a costumed procession walks to the Uneme shrine, which stands with its back to the water, and two boats with dragon and phoenix prows circle the pond to court music before a huge fan of flowers is set adrift. It is free, five minutes from Kintetsu Nara, and in 2026 falls on 24 and 25 September.

• Wakakusa Yamayaki (Burning of Mt. Wakakusa) 2 h only the fourth Saturday of January

  A late-January festival in which the entire slope of Mt. Wakakusa is set ablaze following a torchlight procession and fireworks.

• Wandering the Historic Naramachi District 1.5 h

  A former merchant district with well-preserved traditional wooden houses.

• Yamanobe-no-michi, the oldest road 5 h

  The oldest documented road in Japan, between Tenri and Sakurai, passing imperial burial mounds, farms and Omiwa shrine, one of the oldest in the country.

• Yamatokoriyama, the goldfish town 3 h Yamatokoriyama · 15 min

  Unpaid samurai from this castle started breeding goldfish in the 18th century and the town now produces a large share of Japan's: there are breeding ponds between the houses, tanks in shop windows and even one inside a converted phone box. On the fourth Sunday of August it hosts the national goldfish-scooping championship, free to enter and now open to foreign residents and visitors alike, held in an indoor arena. It is fifteen minutes by train from Nara.

• Yoshikien Garden 0.75 h

  Three gardens in one on what were once Kofuku-ji priests' residences: a stroll pond, a moss garden with a tea house and a flower garden, right beside Isuien and almost always empty. Open 9:00-17:00 (last entry 16:30), only from 1 March to 27 December, and free on presentation of a foreign passport.

• Goldfish museum 1 h

  Immersive digital art installation devoted to goldfish, a contemporary oddity in a city of thousand-year-old temples.

• Isuien Garden 1 h

  A two-section landscape garden that incorporates Mt. Wakakusa and Kofuku-ji's pagoda as borrowed scenery.

• Mochi-Pounding Show at Nakatanidou 0.5 h

  A lightning-fast mochi-pounding performance in full view of the public, followed by a tasting at the shop itself.

• Monk-Guided Zazen at Gango-ji Temple 1.5 h booking

  Zazen meditation guided by a monk at one of the historic temples in Nara's old town (a UNESCO World Heritage site); offered in Japanese only and on weekdays only — best booked through an agency.

• Nara at night: cocktail bar and the Shin-Omiya alley 2.5 h

  Almost everyone leaves for Kyoto to sleep, but Nara has a cocktail bar with a world champion and an alley of taverns next to Shin-Omiya full of local people.

• Nara crafts: linen, brushes and ceramics 2 h

  Narazarashi linen, fude brushes, akahada ceramics and carved ittobori figures are still made here, and there are shops and a museum devoted to them.

• Nara National Museum 2 h

  A museum specializing in Japanese Buddhist art, with a notable collection of sculptures and ritual objects.

• Ritual cutting of the deer antlers 1.5 h

  Every October the antlers of the male deer are cut in a ring, a ceremony centuries old that is also a safety measure for the people in the park.

• The five-storied pagoda of Kofuku-ji 1 h

  Japan's second-tallest wooden pagoda at 50 metres and the silhouette everyone associates with Nara. It is being fully dismantled for restoration: from July 2023 until March 2034 it stands inside a steel work shed some 60 metres high and cannot be seen or entered. The rest of the Kofuku-ji grounds remains open and free, and the National Treasure Museum with the Ashura statue is unaffected.

• Nara marathon 4 h booking

  December marathon that runs through the park and the temples of the old capital.

What only happens on specific dates

• Ochamori, the giant tea bowls of Saidai-ji mid-January, April and October
• Ooyamato: the arrows of 4 January and the deity that sailed on the Yamato 4 January and 1 April
• Shika yose, calling the deer with a horn weekends in winter, late March and August
• Wakakusa Yamayaki (Burning of Mt. Wakakusa) the fourth Saturday of January
• Mantoro, the 3,000 lanterns of Kasuga Setsubun (3 February) and 14-15 August
• Plum blossom in the Tsukigase gorge from mid-February to late March
• Omizutori at Nigatsu-do 1-14 Mar
• Takigi Noh by the light of the bonfires the third Friday and Saturday of May
• The Ganjin statue unveiling at Toshodai-ji 5-7 Jun
• Todai-ji's three August nights, and which one is free from 13 to 15 August
• Nara Tokae, the park by candlelight 5-14 Aug
• Uneme Matsuri at Sarusawa pond the eve and the night of the autumn moon
• The annual Shosoin Exhibition 17 days between late October and November
• Kasuga Wakamiya On-Matsuri 15-18 Dec

Ready-made routes through Nara

Chains well with

More destinations in Kansai