Thank you for following along as I share more memories of our fabulous trip to Japan. I hope to complete these posts by the end of 2025. Wishing you and yours all the best in good health and happiness in 2026.
Kyoto is home to both the Imperial Palace Gardens (Kyoto Gyoen National Garden) and the Kyoto Botanical Gardens. Both places are well worth the visit, especially since both checked off my requirements for this trip- avoiding adding to the tourist overcrowding, and autumn foliage.
Admittedly our visit to the Imperial Palace Gardens was a fleeting visit because we had time to kill before spending the afternoon watching professional table tennis teams play each other. (More about that in a separate post.)
Our subway train station was close to the ramen restaurant and one of the entrances to the Kyoto Gyoen National Garden (which I’ve nicknamed the Imperial Palace Gardens.)
We stopped to have ramen at the Horin restaurant.
After we’d filled up our tummies with delicious ramen, we entered the gardens through one of the gates. We visited on a Saturday. It wasn’t crowded.
As you can see, it’s enormous. We only explored a small portion of it.
Kyoto Botanical Gardens
We visited these gardens on a Monday. It is on the same subway line as the one that took us to the Imperial Palace and the Kyoto Gyoen National Garden, but it is several stops further north. (Karasuma line to Kitayama Station.)
It wasn’t busy. It was filled with families picnicking and children playing. (It was over a long weekend and schools must have been closed.) Entrance fee was Y500 and if you are 65+ the entrance fee is only Y250.
It has a beautiful conservatory filled with exotic flowers.
We had such a lovely day.
One response to “Japan 2025- Kyoto, Imperial Palace Gardens & Kyoto Botanical Gardens”
[…] We spent an amazing Saturday afternoon soaking up the atmosphere, the crowds, pint-sized cheerleaders and incredibly high level of play. (Beforehand, we explored the Kyoto Gyoen National Gardens. Check out my post about that here.) […]