Walk Japan launches Kyoto: Mountains To The Sea
Walk Japan’s newest tour ventures beyond Kyoto City to explore Kyoto Prefecture, the little-visited but beautiful rural hinterland of Japan’s ancient capital.
Walk Japan has launched the new Kyoto: Mountains to the Sea tour exploring Kyoto Prefecture, a bucolic rural region, where the contrast with Kyoto’s urban landscape could not be more stark. Yet, it is here that much of the sublime foods and crafts the city is famed for have been sourced for over a millennia.
Kyoto: Mountains to the Sea is a fully-guided, eight-day tour that ventures through Kyoto’s backcountry; a lovely countryside where the pace of life is still measured by seasons and a multitude of colourful festivals throughout the year. Here, however, visitors, Japanese and from overseas, are few and far between.
The tour follows ancient trails, once vital for commerce and communication, that weave their way through valleys and over high passes until culminating on the rugged Sea of Japan coast at Amanohashidate, rightly considered one of Japan’s three classic vistas. En route, it passes through little-known villages and aside historic temples and shrines, some grand and some very rustic.
Accommodation each night is in Japanese inns, where friendly hosts provide warm welcomes and mouth-watering meals composed of locally-sourced and grown ingredients such as Kyoyasai heirloom vegetables, Miyama ayu sweetfish, Tanba buri yellowtail, and saba mackerel. These are the self-same staples that are celebrated in the cuisine of Kyoto City’s famed high-class ryokan inns and restaurants.
Details
The Kyoto: Mountains to the Sea tour is an eight-day, seven-night, fully-guided walking tour for up to 12 participants starting in Kyoto City and concluding at Amanohashidate. Daily walking distances range between eight to 16 kilometres following mountain trails and quiet country lanes. A Level 4 tour, it is suitable for anyone who leads a reasonably active lifestyle. Prices start from JPY430,000 Japanese yen (approx £2,185) per person, based on double occupancy.
About Walk Japan
Established in 1992, Walk Japan is an independently owned and managed walking tour company that enlightens and enriches its guests on walking tours through many less-travelled regions of Japan from Hokkaido in the nation’s far north to Okinawa in its far south. Walk Japan’s pioneering tours evolved from study trips run by two Hong Kong University academics and since then, Walk Japan’s Tour Leaders have guided many tens of thousands of people from around the world through Japan’s natural beauty, history, society and culture that is otherwise often difficult to access and fully appreciate.