Arriving at Heian-jingo in Kyoto, Japan. This is actually one of the newer temples in Kyoto, built at the end of the 19th century, and of course built in a very traditional style. This kind of architecture really dates back 300, 400 or even 500 years.
This reproduction of an Imperial Palace was constructed in 1895, complete with shrines and a vast garden complex with ponds, islands and Chinese-Japanese-style landscaping.
And it’s a very large temple complex with some beautiful gardens out in the back.
There are always well-tended paths through the gardens
Notice all of the colors in the trees. We were quite fortunate to be catching the tail end of the fall season. Even though it’s the first week of December the weather was fairly moderate, and generally the colors do linger into the early part of December.
Often you have a pond or several ponds like this with pretty reflections of the vegetation.
The temples have wonderful wooden architecture, and yet the gardens all around, probably is even more of an interesting attraction than the buildings themselves.
One reason this grand temple and gardens were created in the late 19th century was in reaction to Kyoto being replaced as the capital of Japan, by Tokyo. For 1000 years Kyoto had been the capital of the country and when the capital was moved to Tokyo in 1868 it caused some decline in the prosperity and mood of the city and this temple was constructed 30 years later as a response of the city to revitalize.
The garden all around the pond is 30,000 square meters in size and divided in four sections with a variety of birds such as kingfishers and large falcons.
Here’s a gardener out in a boat reaching some of the areas that are on islands in the middle of the pond.
Afterwards you might take a walk through the public park in front towards the huge metal torii – biggest in town – and consider a visit to the National Museum of Modern Art, with its large collection of paintings and ceramics. The Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art is just behind.
AloJapan.com