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Kyoto and the Nakasendo · Japan

Kyoto Craft Season

Eight days in one city, with four workshop appointments in it

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The shape of it

A week in Kyoto built around makers rather than sights: looms, knives, indigo and bamboo, with an interpreter and a great deal of walking.

Most first Kyoto itineraries are a list of temples and a case of quiet disappointment. This one has four temples in it and four workshops, and the workshops are the reason people come back.

Sho's appointments are relationships built one at a time over ten years: an obi weaver in Nishijin, a knife sharpener near the market, an indigo dyer south of the river, and a woman who has been making bamboo tea whisks since 1984. None of them are open to the public and none of them are performances.

Around that, the trip is deliberately thin. One thing in the morning, one in the afternoon, and a return visit to whichever temple you liked, which is always better than a fifth new one.

Length
8 days, 7 nights
From
€5,600 per person
Best months
Late March to early May, and mid-October to early December
Season
Spring, Autumn
Format
Private departure
Party
Two to four travellers
Pace
One city, one move, two appointments a day at most
Travel styles
Culture and craft

Per person sharing, based on two travellers. Cherry blossom weeks carry a supplement and sell out a year ahead. Dates and prices shown are indicative demo content. Confirm everything with your own operations before publishing.

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Day by day

The itinerary

Written as it would actually run. Select a day to see where you are, what you are doing and where you sleep.

A machiya street front of fine cedar lattice with a tiled pent roof, paper lantern and indigo doorway curtain

Day 1

Arrive Kyoto

Met at Kansai and taken to the machiya by car rather than train, because the first hour with luggage is not the hour to learn the system. Dinner is ten minutes' walk away and booked.

  • Transfer from Kansai, around 100 minutes
  • A walk around the neighbourhood before dark
Night
Machiya Ogawa
Getting there
Kansai airport to Kyoto, 100 minutes by car

The country you travel through

Fine white warp threads running over the planed timber beam of a dressed wooden loom, shadow behind
Ridges of cedar forest with mist in the valleys, red maples and a large temple hall in blue first light
Timber riverside houses on tall stilts above the Kamo river in Kyoto under flat grey light

Where you sleep

The places we use on this trip

All stays

Included

The days worth flying for

All experiences

What is included

  • Seven nights at the machiya with breakfast
  • Four workshop appointments with interpreting throughout
  • The market morning with a working chef
  • Airport transfers and all rail reservations
  • A written city guide, updated the month you travel

What is not

  • International flights
  • Most lunches and dinners
  • Travel insurance
A stone path climbing between tall cedar trunks past a carved stone lantern to a plain timber torii

Who plans this journey

Sho Nakamura

Japan · planning since 2014

Sho grew up in Nishijin, the weaving district, and spent six years working for a textile wholesaler before joining us. The four workshop appointments on the Kyoto journeys are his relationships, built one at a time.

He walks the Kiso section of the Nakasendo twice a year and revises the notes every time. He also books the trains, which sounds dull and is the difference between a good week and a fraught one.

Known for: Talking travellers out of a fifth temple and into a second visit to the one they liked.

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