Its main hall stands on a wooden stage built over a steep hillside, held up by dozens of tall pillars and not a single nail. For centuries people have come to Kiyomizu-dera to drink from its Otowa waterfall, where three streams are said to bring longevity, success in studies, or love. Drinking from all three, the story goes, is greedy. Each December the temple also announces the Kanji of the Year, a single character chosen to sum up the past twelve months for all of Japan.
Audio guide Kyoto
Tella is a free audio guide for any place on Earth. Here are 30 places in Kyoto worth a story. Open one on the map and hear it read aloud in English, or take the Android app on a walk and let it narrate whatever you pass.
Places worth a story
Kyōto Station
railway station and metro station in Kyōto, Kyōto Prefecture, Japan
Photo: MaedaAkihiko · CC0
Yasaka Shrine
Shinto shrine in Kyoto, Japan
Its vermilion main gate faces straight down Shijō-dōri, and for over a thousand years the Gion Matsuri — Kyoto's biggest festival — has begun from this shrine. The festival started in 869 as a purification rite to appease Susanoo, the deity enshrined here, during a plague that swept the city. Today the shrine sits at the edge of the Gion entertainment district, where teahouses and geiko houses cluster just beyond its western gate. The main hall, rebuilt in 1654, shows how imperial patronage and popular devotion merged in this part of Kyoto.
Photo: CC BY-SA 3.0
Shimogamo Shrine
Shinto shrine in Sakyō-ku, Kyōto, Japan
Nishi Hongan-ji Temple
Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan. Head temple of Honganji-ha school
Photo: 663highland · CC BY-SA 4.0
Stories are written by an AI from public map and encyclopaedia data and may contain mistakes.