A steep forest path from behind the Silver Pavilion to the firebeds of the giant 大 character, with the whole city spread below, and then the gentlest walk in Kyoto: a canal path lined with cherry trees, south to Nanzen-ji.
Every year on the night of 16 August, at the end of Obon, five giant figures are lit on the hills around Kyoto to send the ancestors' spirits home. The first and most famous is the 大, "great", on Daimonji-yama.
The rest of the year you can walk up to it. A steep forest path climbs from the area behind Ginkaku-ji, the Silver Pavilion, to the stone firebeds at the centre of the character in about 45 minutes. The view takes in the whole city, from the Kamo river to the haze over Osaka. Continue another half hour along the ridge to the true summit for quiet. Go for sunset, descend with a torch, and eat in the student streets below the temple.
The Philosopher's Path starts at the bottom: a stone path along a narrow canal, named for the philosopher Nishida Kitarō, who walked it daily. It runs south past small temples and cafés to Nanzen-ji, with its great gate, its red-brick aqueduct and the old incline of the Lake Biwa canal. Cherry trees in April, fireflies in June.
Do Daimonji first while your legs are fresh, then stroll south in the late afternoon light.
From the approach to the Silver Pavilion, turn left before the temple gate and follow the lane north to the trailhead beside a stream and a check dam.
A steep path with steps through the forest emerges on the open slope of the character, among its stone hearths. Sit and watch the city.
The path continues to the 465-metre summit in the trees, and on along the ridge towards Keage if you want a longer loop.
Back at Ginkaku-ji, follow the canal south past Hōnen-in's mossy gate, Eikan-dō and small shrines, about an hour at strolling pace.
Walk under the brick arches of the Suirokaku aqueduct in Nanzen-ji's grounds, then down the old Keage incline railway to Keage station.
City buses 5, 17 and 100 run to Ginkakuji-michi; walk ten minutes east to the temple. Return from Keage on the Tōzai subway.
The trail is closed around the Gozan no Okuribi. Watch the fire from the Kamo river banks instead.
The streets around Kyoto University below Ginkaku-ji are full of cheap noodle and curry places.
Kyoto practical notes →
Thousands of gates and a quiet summit.
Over the tengu's mountain to the river.
A pilgrim path between Kyoto and Lake Biwa.
Macaques, a view and the river trail.
Three mountain temples and a river trail.
Wikimedia Commons photographs are used under their licences; Pexels photographs under the Pexels licence.
