Final Itinerary help - 1 year wedding anniversary/honeymoon trip - 2 weeks: Kyoto, Hakone, Tokyo
I posted here a little while back with a more general itinerary and got some great feedback. Now that we have the trip mostly pinned down I'd love any further suggestions or thoughts.
Oct 20: Arrive in Narita at 2:45pm, collect portable wifi, get on train to Kyoto, check into hotel near Kyoto Station
Oct 21: Train to Kibune, walk path to Kurama (or the other way around?) (also not sure what else to add into this day but we'll be tired so maybe not much)
Oct 22: Gion, Higashiyama, Jidai Matsuri, Shogunzuka Mound (the Kurama Matsuri is also this day, but we've heard mixed things on whether it's worth going to. Also, the trail between Kurama and Kibune is closed during the festival day)
Oct 23: Fushimi Inari then Nara (too much for one day?)
Oct 24: Arashiyama; Monkey Park, Tenryu-ji, Okochi Sanso Garden, Eel Hirokawa, Sagano Railway (anything else we shouldn't miss?)
Oct 25: train to Hakone; Hakone round course then check in to Ryokan
Oct 26: Not sure yet, but taking it easy and checking out Hakone (suggestions welcome)
Oct 27: train to Tokyo; check into hotel in Asaksubashi, spend rest of day in Akihabara
Oct 28: Sumida Aquarium, Ghibli Museum, Shibuya
Oct 29: Yoyogi park, Meiji Jingu, Jindai Botanical Garden, Jindai Ji
Oct 30: Kamakura, Enoshima
Oct 31: Maricar, Ueno park (museums/zoo)
Nov 1: Nikko (still need to research where to go in Nikko)
Nov 2: Asakusa, Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building for sunset views and all-you-can-drink hour
Nov 3: Plane departs Narita around 5pm, probably try to squeeze in something early in the day
Is any of this too much? Are we missing anything that we should not? Are we doing too many day trips? Does anyone have and first hand experience with the Kurama Matsuri?
Thanks for the input!
Posted Oct 9, 2017, 4:02 PM UTC
Seems like a pretty good plan I can tell you my wife and I did the train to Kyoto right after arriving on our first trip and absolutely regretted it. After being on a plan for so long to have to immediately hop a train was awful. But it is doable.
You might have a tough time doing Fushimi Inari and then Nara in the same day unless you're getting a very early start (which is a great time to see Fushimi Inari since the crowds are thinner).
For Akihabara, I found it helpful to have a couple of places to visit in mind. It's a fun area to wander, but for me it was nice to have some spots I wanted to stop to kind of guide the wandering.
I'm guessing you guys are doing onsen since you're stopping at Nikko and Hakone. That was one of our favorite things, so I totally recommend it. We've been to both and they're both nice.
Also glad to see the Sanso garden on your list, that was super nice. Arashiyama is a great place to spend a day.
One last thing we did was make a list of foods we wanted to eat so that when we inevitably found ourselves wandering hungry somewhere we didn't forget all the stuff we wanted to try.
The train to Kyoto on the first day just worked best with our schedule. I'm sure you are right and it will suck, but we'll just have to tough it out.
We do plan on starting Fushimi Inari super early, like sunrise (~6am). We'll try to get up that early most days to get the most out of the sunlight hours (sunset ~5pm). But I still worry about being rushed at Fushimi Inari or not having enough Nara time.
I'll be sure to check out more specifics in Akihabara. And we are most definitely going to a couple onsen.
We do have a loose idea of all the types of food we want to eat, but haven't really looked at many specific restaurants. I figured we'd just use the Gurinavi app to find nearby placed on the fly.