DAY ONE
6.30AM: It’s tempting to lounge around your pistachio-green Japanese-styled room at OMO5 KYOTO GION, a hotel effortlessly combining funk with tradition, but instead it’s an early start. Join a hotel ‘ranger’ as they guide you through the charming streets of the historic GION DISTRICT, conveniently on your doorstop. It’s a place of stone pavements and preserved timber buildings shuttered with bamboo screens where kimono-clad geiko (geisha) still roam. The tour might be in English but if not (and your Japanese isn’t up to scratch), it’s still an opportunity to roam the streets crowd-free, see some highlights and make an offering at YASAKA SHRINE.
Don comfy shoesand cafes en route as you follow the signs to 13th-century NANZENJI TEMPLE so you don’t disappear into the ’burbs.
