02.04. Day Trip Nara

In our Nara Day Trip, we plan to show you the key sights and places to see in Nara. As always: Keep in mind that there's plenty more to see in a place like Nara, so one day is simply not enough to show you all the good spots. Check out our Google List for restaurants, sights, food spots, and more on Nara for a list of places we can recommend.

A general note regarding the costs and entrance fees: The fees we indicate here are for a standard adult entrance tickets. Where possible, we will try to get group discount entrance tickets. So for some sights, the effective price might be lower than what we indicated here.

What you should bring to this day trip:

• Footwear in which you can walk a lot
• Some water (you'll have plenty of options to buy some as well)
• At least 5,000 Yen in cash for entrance fees, food, drinks, etc. (it's recommended to carry a couple of 10,000 Yen bills at all times in Japan, since you can rarely pay by card)
• Small bag or small backpack if you need it
• If you have, your ICOCA for quick and easy train ticket purchase (we can help you get one if you don't have one)

Here's the Itinerary for the Day Trip:

1. Start at 08:30am at Tennoji Station in Osaka

We start at 08:30am sharp at the meet-up spot at Tennoji station. The specific location will still be shared with you. It will be the exact same spot where the prior-day Osaka Day Trip ends, so hopefully it should be easy to find!

We take the JR fast train from Tennoji to Nara, which takes about 35 minutes. This line is rather popular, but since it's a Tuesday during work hours, it shouldn't be too crowded.

Train Fare: ~ 510 Yen (since it's an inter-city rapid connection)

2. ~09:15am - 09:40am: Arrival at Nara Station and transfer to Todaiji Area

We'll arrive around 09:15am in Nara. From there, we will take the public busses to transfer to the Todaiji area. In this area, there's plenty of different sites, so it's a good first hub to stop at. Since we'll be walking a lot throughout the day, the busses are a good way to get us there.

3. 09:40am - 11:15am: Walk Through Park & Visit to Kasuga Taisha Shrine

The surrounding areas of the Todaiji area and the Kasuga Taisha Shrine are a beautiful park with hundreds of free-roaming deer, which Nara is world-famous for. You will find them all over Nara, but particularly here in the park. We take a walk along the beautiful path leading to Kasuge Taisha Shrine and explore the shrine together. The grounds are rather vast, so we do not plan to visit every single structure there is to see.

This shrine is one of Tim's favourite in Nara and we go there every time we're in Japan.

Entrance Fee: 500 Yen for Shrine, another 500 Yen for the Museum, another 500 for the botanical Gardens

4. 11:15am - 11:45am: Transfer to Todaiji Temple

From the shrine, we will walk towards the Todaiji temple, our next stop for the day.

5. 11:45am - 02:00pm: Lunch & Todaiji Temple

There are a couple of smaller Japanese restaurants along the way, so our plan is to ideally catch a nice filling Japanese lunch in one of them. After lunch, we continue on to walk a couple of hundred meters to Todaiji temple.

Todaiji temple consists of multiple structures, but the main hall is the Great Buddha Hall: It dates back to the 8th Century, has been damaged and rebuilt multiple times throughout history, and is currently the largest wooden structure in the world (traditional Japanese buildings did not use any metal at all, but exclusively woodworking craftsmanship).

The hall houses the largest Bronze Buddha statue in the world, weighing about 500 tonnes, and measuring 15 metres in height (18 metres if you include the base.

Entrance Fee: 800 Yen for Great Buddha Hall, 1,200Yen for a combined ticket with the museum

7. 02:00pm - 02:30pm: Walk to Ukimido

From the temple, we walk towards Ukimido, a scenic little gazebo overlooking waters. It's a great spot for some quick pictures.

8. 02:30pm - 02:45pm: Walk to Traditional Japanese House

From Ukimido, we walk to a traditional Japanese house to explore how people lived around the end of the Edo period (~140 years ago).

9. 02:45pm - 03:15pm: Visit to Traditional Japanese House

We'll check out a traditional Japanese house and how people lived about 120-140 years ago, at the end of the Edo and start of the Meiji period.

10. 03:15pm - 04:15pm: Transfer and Visit to Kofuku-ji Temples and Pagodas

From the old traditional town house, we walk to Kofuku-ji temple, with its impressive pagoda and temple grounds. Parts of this area are scheduled for maintenance and restoration around this time, so currently, we do not plan to go inside the temple or temple grounds directly, most likely because this will not be possible. The pagoda and temple is very impressive from the outside nonetheless and is right on the way to the next stop...

11. 04:15pm - 06:15pm: Walk through Shopping Streets, Shotengais, and back to Nara Station

On the slow way back from Kofuku-ji, we check out the many alleyways, shopping streets and food stalls on Sanjo Dori street. There's two snacks we will definitely try out: First, the incredible mochi from Nakatanidou, that often displays how to make Mochi in the most incredible fashion. Second, the Ichigo Daifuku at Daibutsu Ichigo, a delicious mochi filled with custard, topped off with a sweet strawberry. Additionally, in this area, you will find plenty of other food, snack and shopping opportunities, e.g. the Higashimuki shopping street. You will have about two hours to roam and explore the streets, enjoy some food, or simply go with the flow.

We walk back slowly to Nara station and arrive there around 06:15pm

12. ~18:30pm: Train back to Osaka

You are more than welcome to stay longer in Nara, e.g. for dinner, since there's plenty of more trains leaving even later back to Osaka. We plan to take the train back to Osaka around 06:30pm, which will get us back to Tennoji station at around 07:10pm. At Tennoji, same as the day before, you will have the same hundreds of choices in terms of dinner, drinks, etc.