Itinerary · 10 days · 51 places
10 Days in Japan
Four days in Tokyo, six days in Kyoto, with the Shinkansen in between — one neighbourhood per day so you walk rather than ride, and cherry blossom everywhere in April.
Open in the appThere you can adjust the plan to your dates, your pace and your interests.
Photo: Nizar F · Pexels
The route on the map
The plan, day by day
Day 1Arrival in Tokyo — first evening in Shinjuku
Arrival in Tokyo
Hotel check-in
Base yourself in Shinjuku, the station district in the west of the city, from where every line reaches the centre in fifteen minutes.
Hanazono Shrine
A small Shinto shrine among the high-rises, whose row of red lanterns is lit up after dark.
Day 2Old Tokyo: Asakusa & Ueno
Kaminarimon
The Thunder Gate with its four-metre red paper lantern, entrance to the city's oldest temple precinct.
Nakamise-dōri
Some 250 metres of stalls leading up to the temple, selling rice crackers, ningyō-yaki and fans.
Sensō-ji
Tokyo's oldest temple, dating from 645, with an incense burner in the courtyard and the five-storey pagoda beside it.
Sumida Park
A riverside promenade with an avenue of cherry trees and a view of the Skytree across the water.
Tokyo Skytree
A 634-metre broadcasting tower; from the deck at 350 metres the view reaches as far as Mount Fuji when the air is clear.
Ueno Park
A sprawling park with a lotus pond, Tōshōgū Shrine and, in spring, more than a thousand cherry trees in bloom.
Evening: Ameya-Yokochō
A market street beneath the railway tracks, filled in the evening with standing bars between fish and spice stalls.
Day 3Meiji Shrine, Harajuku & Shibuya
Meiji Shrine
A shrine complex in a specially planted forest of 100,000 trees, reached through three huge cypress torii.
Takeshita-dōri
A narrow pedestrian street of teen fashion, with crêpe stands and second-hand shops stacked on top of each other.
Omotesandō
A broad zelkova-lined avenue with architect-designed flagship stores by Ando, Herzog & de Meuron and SANAA.
Shibuya Crossing
The world's most famous crossing, where up to 3,000 people walk diagonally every time the lights turn green.
Shibuya Sky
An open rooftop terrace on the 47th floor without a glass wall — the best view of the sea of lights at blue hour.
Evening: Nonbei Yokochō
"Drunkard's Alley" behind the station: two rows of tiny post-war bars.
Day 4Tsukiji, Ginza & Imperial Palace
Tsukiji Outer Market
The surviving traders' section of the old fish market: tamagoyaki on skewers, sea urchin, knife makers.
Hama-rikyū Gardens
The shoguns' former falconry garden, with a teahouse on an island in a tidal pond.
Chūō-dōri in Ginza
The district's grand boulevard, car-free on weekend afternoons, with the Wako clock tower and kabuki posters.
East Gardens of the Imperial Palace
The freely accessible castle grounds of Edo: cyclopean ramparts, a guardhouse and the base of the old keep.
Tokyo Station, Marunouchi side
The restored 1914 red-brick façade with two domes whose reliefs show the signs of the zodiac.
Evening: Marunouchi Naka-dōri
An illuminated tree-lined avenue between the office towers, with terraces and street music in the evening.
Day 5By Shinkansen to Kyoto — Higashiyama
Onward to Kyoto
Hotel check-in
Kiyomizu-dera
A temple on a wooden scaffold above the hillside, built without a single nail, with a view over all of Kyoto.
Sannenzaka
A paved stepped lane with wooden houses, tea shops and ceramics — the loveliest hundred metres of the old town.
Yasaka Shrine
A shrine at the end of Shijō Street whose hundreds of donated lanterns are lit at dusk.
Maruyama Park
Kyoto's oldest park, in April with its famous illuminated weeping cherry in the middle.
Evening: Hanami-kōji in Gion
The main lane of the geisha district, lined with machiya façades, where you can see geiko heading to work in the evening.
Day 6Arashiyama: bamboo and temple gardens
Arashiyama Bamboo Grove
A path through bamboo as dense as it is tall, its stalks creaking in the wind — almost deserted before ten o'clock.
Tenryū-ji
Head temple of the Tenryū-ji branch of the Rinzai school; its Sōgen pond garden from 1339 survives unchanged.
Togetsukyō Bridge
The "Moon Crossing Bridge" over the Katsura River, with the wooded slopes of Mount Arashi behind.
Ōkōchi Sansō
The villa and stroll garden of a silent-film actor, with a viewpoint over the Kyoto basin; tea included.
Giō-ji
A tiny moss temple with a thatched hut, its ground one single green carpet.
Nonomiya Shrine
A shrine with an unhewn bark torii, where Heian princesses purified themselves before serving at Ise.
Evening: Pontochō
A lantern-lit lane by the Kamo River, barely two metres wide, packed with restaurants with river terraces.
Day 7Fushimi Inari and the southern temples
Fushimi Inari-taisha
A mountain path beneath ten thousand vermilion torii, each donated by a business and inscribed on the back.
Tōfuku-ji
A Zen monastery with the Tsūten Bridge over a maple ravine and four modern rock gardens by Shigemori.
Sanjūsangen-dō
A 120-metre wooden hall with 1,001 gilded Kannon statues standing in rows.
Kyoto National Museum
A collection of Buddhist sculpture, lacquer and ceramics in an 1897 brick building opposite the temple.
Evening: Kamo riverbank at Sanjō
The grassy riverbank where half of Kyoto sits in the evening at neatly even intervals.
Day 8Ginkaku-ji and the Philosopher's Path
Ginkaku-ji
The Silver Pavilion without any silver, with a sand cone and a raked gravel ocean in front and a moss garden on the slope behind.
Philosopher's Path
Two kilometres of canal-side path beneath cherry trees, named after the philosopher Nishida, who walked here every day.
Eikan-dō
The temple of the "Amida looking back", with wooden galleries climbing the hillside and a pond below.
Nanzen-ji
A head Zen monastery with a massive Sanmon gate and a Roman-looking brick aqueduct in its grounds.
Heian Shrine
A replica of the Heian palace in bold red, with a stroll garden of weeping cherries and stepping stones across the pond behind.
Evening: Shijō-Kawaramachi
Kyoto's brightest intersection, with department stores, arcades and izakaya in the side streets.
Day 9Golden Pavilion and Zen gardens
Kinkaku-ji
The gold-leaf pavilion reflected in its pond — early in the morning without the sun behind it.
Ryōan-ji
Japan's most famous rock garden: fifteen rocks in gravel, never all visible at once.
Ninna-ji
A sprawling temple complex with a five-storey pagoda and late-blooming, unusually low Omuro cherries.
Nijō Castle
The shogun's castle with "nightingale floors" that chirp at every step and gold-ground wall paintings by the Kanō school.
Nishiki Market
Four hundred metres of covered market street, "Kyoto's kitchen": tsukemono, yuba, grilled eel on skewers.
Evening: Kiyamachi Street
A street along the narrow Takase Canal, with the city's densest row of bars and willow trees in the evening.
Day 10Last morning and departure
Tō-ji
Japan's tallest wooden pagoda at 55 metres, next to a hall full of 9th-century mandala statues.
Skyway at Kyoto Station
A glass walkway 45 metres above the station concourse, with a view over the rooftops to the eastern mountains.
Departure from Kyoto
Make it your trip
Viatro AI opens this plan in the app — with map, travel times and opening hours. You change the days, pace and places yourself.
