May trip to Japan

Hi there,

Since the flight from the UK may be a bit tiring I would recommend trying to stay at least the fight night in Tokyo to recover from any Jetlag. Then on to Kyoto, Hiroshima and back to stay a couple of days in Tokyo for shopping and taking a little break before heading back to the UK. In this case I would use to JR-Pass on the first day to head to Tokyo and for the following travel days.

What to see, if you enjoy gardens I would recommend a visit to the imperial palace in Tokyo and a visit to the Ryoanji Temple in Kyoto. Also while in Kyoto a visit to the Temple town of Nara may be of interest. If you would like a little more quiet consider visiting Takayama which is a nice little town in the mountainous heartland of Japan. You could fit it in on the way from Hiroshima to Tokyo for instance.

For Hotels, I would recommend using booking sites like tripadviser.com to look for hotels, you can set your own preferences and budget and also read a lot of reviews left by previous guests. For Kyoto [Royal Spa Hotel]may be of interest, when I stayed there, it offered nice rooms for a good price and is in the center of Kyoto. If you book a Hotel I would always recommend using one of the booking sites, like the previous mentioned trip adviser (and others like bookings.com, agoda.com etc..) as they usually give better deals than if you book directly on the Hotels website.

Hope this helps,
Daniel

Thank you for your quick response! We are looking at the hotels/reading and making plans. Would you recommend another visit (another town/site )as we will have the JR pass? Are 4 days enough for Tokyo (we will shop in the UK- I think its cheaper )so.. its purely sight seeing and ENJOYING the new city/sites,but not in a rush!
Can't wait for May now...

Kind regards
DC

Hello again,

While you are in Tokyo a visti to Nikko may be very nice. You can do this as a day trip or stay there for a night.
In 4 days you can see a lot in Tokyo and visit many of the bigger Wards, if you make a planning before hand it is easy to combine many places on the same day.

For instance, Shinjuku, Harajuku, Omote-Sando and Shibuya are very close to each other.

Have a great time in Japan!
Daniel

Thank you so much !
Kind regardsDC

If you like gardens you might consider stopping for a day in Kobe, near Kyoto. There's a cable-car just next to the shinkansen station in Kobe that goes up to the Nunobiki herb garden on the hilltop. Great views of the city below, lots of places to walk around and always something in bloom.

Hi Nojay,

That is a really good tip! The Herb garden is currently closed because of the season but in Spring and Summer makes for a beautiful walk down the mountain, especially during sunset. The trail takes about 3 hours if you plan on walking the whole thing.