Arashiyama Bamboo Grove: When to Go + the Monkey Park Climb
Everyone has seen the photo of the bamboo grove. Almost nobody's photo looks like it, because they went at 11am with thousands of other people. The grove is a short path; it takes six minutes to walk. The whole point is what it feels like when it's quiet, and it's only quiet at one time of day.
When to go to the bamboo grove
Before 8am. Ideally earlier. The path is open around the clock and free, and in the early morning the light comes down through the stalks in stripes, the air smells green and damp, and the sound is the thing: the bamboo creaks and knocks as it moves, a hollow, wooden sound like someone tapping a xylophone somewhere above you. You cannot hear it at 10:30. By then it's a slow-moving queue with rickshaws pushing through.
If mornings are impossible, the next best is late afternoon, after the tour buses have left. Midday is never good.
Getting there early: from Kyoto Station, a train to Saga-Arashiyama takes about 15 minutes, with first trains running before 6am. From the station, the grove is a short walk past Tenryu-ji's north gate.
Tenryu-ji: the garden that opens early
Once you've walked the grove, and back, the return walk in the same light is usually emptier, you'll be at Tenryu-ji's north entrance around opening time. Garden admission is a small fee; the temple buildings cost a little extra and are worth it for the view from the veranda.
Tenryu-ji is a 14th-century Zen temple whose garden, by the monk Muso Soseki, is one of the oldest surviving in Japan. It's a pond garden that uses the Arashiyama hills behind as "borrowed scenery," so the garden appears to continue up the mountain. Sit on the veranda of the main hall, look across the pond to the rock arrangement that represents a waterfall, and let it go quiet. Autumn colours here are among Kyoto's best.
Togetsukyo bridge and the river
Exit Tenryu-ji's south gate and walk a few minutes to the Togetsukyo, the "Moon Crossing Bridge," a bridge over the Katsura river that has existed in some form for over a thousand years. The view upstream, the river, the hills, the boats, is the classic Arashiyama image and it's good in every season. Rowboats are rentable on the north bank.
Iwatayama Monkey Park: the climb is real
Cross Togetsukyo to the south bank. The entrance to Iwatayama Monkey Park is a few minutes to the right, through a small shrine gate. It closes in the mid-afternoon and in heavy rain.
Then you climb. It's a 20 to 30 minute uphill trail through forest. Bring water; there's none on the way. At the top is an open hilltop with wild Japanese macaques living free, they're not caged, you are. The rules are simple and enforced: don't stare into their eyes, don't crouch to their level, don't touch, don't show them food. Feeding is only allowed from inside a wooden hut, where you buy apple slices or peanuts and pass them through the wire mesh to monkeys who take them with small, dry, deliberate fingers. The view of Kyoto from the summit is a bonus most people don't expect.
It's the best thing in Arashiyama for children and surprisingly good for adults. Allow 90 minutes total.
Doing it in order
Grove early morning, Tenryu-ji shortly after opening, bridge, monkey park, back down by noon for lunch on the north bank. Then you have an afternoon for Kyoto proper.
The catch is that Arashiyama's train stations are in different places and none is next to the grove; people lose the early-morning advantage by walking the wrong way from the wrong station.
Our Arashiyama Bamboo Grove to Monkey Park Half-Day Pamphlet gives you the exact walking route from the station, the timings above, what to see at Tenryu-ji, and where the monkey park entrance is, it's easy to miss. It's $20, offline, on your phone. Set an early alarm.
Arashiyama Bamboo Grove to Monkey Park Half-Day Pamphlet
The bamboo grove at dawn, Tenryu-ji's garden, Togetsukyo Bridge and the monkey park climb, with the exact early-morning timing.
See the full pamphlet