Kyoto
A 150-year-old townhouse, taken for the day.
Every month is a different Kyoto.
Cold, still gardens.
After the first days of the new year the city empties. The gardens are at their quietest, and so are the temples.
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The coldest weeks, the warmest rooms.
Kyoto winters are damp and cold. We plan the days indoors: tea rooms, workshops and long lunches.
Plum, then the first cherries.
Plum blossom first, and by the end of the month the earliest cherries. The calm before the busiest weeks.
Cherry blossom.
The most famous weeks in Kyoto, and the busiest. We plan around the crowded hours and the crowded places.
Aoi Matsuri, and the riverside opens.
The Aoi procession on 15 May, and from 1 May the restaurants along the Kamo River set out their summer platforms.
Rain on the courtyard.
The rainy season. The townhouses were built for it: rain on moss, and a cool room behind the lattice.
Gion Matsuri.
The whole month belongs to the Gion festival, with the great float processions on 17 and 24 July. Hot, and alive.
Heat, and the fires on the hills.
Kyoto is at its hottest. On 16 August, characters of fire are lit on the hills around the city to see the ancestors off.
The heat eases.
Evenings cool, and dinner on the river platforms carries on into mid-October.
Clear days, and the Jidai Matsuri.
Comfortable weather for walking. The Jidai procession is usually held on 22 October.
The maples.
Kyoto’s autumn colour is at its fullest in the second half of the month. The busiest season of all, so we plan with care.
Quiet weeks before the year ends.
The colour fades in early December and the city slows down before the new year.
Seasons shift a little each year. We confirm dates when we plan your journey.
About the Region
Everyone arrives in Kyoto with a list of temples. Almost nobody spends a day inside an ordinary house, which is a pity, because the city's real form is domestic. Kyoto was a city of merchants and craftsmen long before it was a sightseeing destination, and the buildings they lived and worked in are still standing in their thousands — narrow at the street, absurdly deep behind it, with a small garden punched into the middle to let in light.
Most are now shops, cafés or short-let apartments. A handful are still whole: kitchen, tatami rooms, courtyard, storehouse, in the original relationship to one another. Taking one of those for a day is a different proposition from booking a cultural experience. You are borrowing somebody's house, and the programme is built to fit the house rather than the other way round.
History
The machiya form was shaped partly by tax. Frontage onto the street was what the city assessed, so houses grew backwards instead of sideways — three or four metres wide, thirty or more deep, earning them the nickname unagi no nedoko, an eel's bed. Behind the shop front came the living rooms, then a courtyard garden, then the storehouse, in a sequence that made light and air work in a building with only one open end.
Kyoto had something like forty thousand of them in the mid-twentieth century and has been losing hundreds a year ever since — to fire regulations, inheritance tax, and the simple cost of maintaining a timber building. The ones kept whole are kept whole by a family deciding to, usually at a loss. That is worth knowing before you take your shoes off in one.
The Experiences
Craft
Kimono, Then the Blocks Around the House
Performing Arts
Taiko, at Arm's Length
Craft
Tea in the House, Beside the Courtyard
Itinerary Preview
Arrival at the House
You come in off the street through a frontage barely wider than a car, and a house built a hundred and fifty years ago keeps going for another thirty metres. Green tea and a sweet in the front room while the shape of the house is explained — which is faster than being told about it afterwards.
Dressed in Kimono
Where it can be arranged, you are dressed in kimono in one of the tatami rooms — the layers, the obi, and the way they change how you walk and sit. Then the house is yours to move through in it.
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Lunch in the House
A one-plate lunch made in the house's own kitchen and served in a tatami room, rather than a table somewhere across town.
The Neighbourhood, on Foot
Two hours and perhaps half a kilometre, with someone who lives on these blocks — in kimono, if you are wearing it. A tofu maker, a shrine the size of a parking space, the shops that survived and the ones that did not. No temple queue at any point.
Tea, Made in the House
Back to the house as the light drops. Where it can be arranged, tea is prepared for you in the manner of the tea ceremony, with the courtyard garden — the whole point of the building's design — beside you.
Shamisen, Close Enough to Hear the Wood
Where it can be arranged, shamisen in the tatami room, played with no microphone between you and the instrument.
Taiko, Played by the Owner
The house belongs to a taiko teacher and performer, and the drums are played in the same timber room, at a volume the building was never designed for. You feel it in the floor. This is the part people talk about afterwards.
Sushi, Without Leaving the House
Supper stays in the house. Where it can be arranged, a sushi chef from the neighbourhood comes in and makes it in front of you, so the evening never has to move on to a restaurant.
Back Through the Lanes
A short walk back to your hotel through streets that are completely quiet by then. If you are staying in the city centre, it is five minutes and a different century.