Customer Reviews

Exploring Kyoto: On Foot in the Ancient Capital

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a resident of Kyoto, I found this book invaluable in locating hidden spots not on most tourist maps. There is a painful lack of information in English about Kyoto, and this book takes a large step in correcting that. Reccomended.

The author does not try and hide her distaste for the modern aspects of Japanese cities, her focus is on the historical background of the sights and the tone of her writing is dry and almost textbook. If you are the type of person who reads all of the written information available on the plaques in museums and you love to learn about the history of the places you visit you will enjoy reading this book. The information has much more depth than what you will find in a typical tour book but not all of the major sights are covered.

My problem with 'Exploring Kyoto' is that it is tries to be a collection of walking tours that you would carry and use as a guide but it does not work well in that way. For one the book is cumbersome and not organised in a way that is easy to follow on the fly. The maps are poor and the descriptions of the routes are not always clear. Sometimes it is not even clear where you need to start the walk. The text is more suitable to reading in a comfortable location before or after you head out.

On the positive side, I had a really great time exploring the western outskirts of Kyoto with this book, and it gave me a look at the Goin district that was richer than I found elsewhere. It covers some of the 'must see' sights of Kyoto but I found its' strength to be in the lesser known sights in the outskirts of the city. If you plan to be in Kyoto only a couple of days this book may be unnecessary, there is a free pamphlet available at the tourist office called 'Kyoto Walks' that covers the main sights. If you will be in Kyoto a week or longer and want to visit some lesser known, historically fascinating sights, 'Exploring Kyoto' may be of value to you.

Exploring Kyoto is a wonderful guide for the independent traveler to Kyoto. Thanks to Judith Clancy's careful research, I have found places in Kyoto which I never knew existed and explored them in depth. Last month I spent two days in Ohara, a mountain village on the outskirts of the city, using the book as a guide. No other guidebooks in English cover this area but armed with the book, I wandered about finding temples that even Japanese ignored. I have done the same in Fushimi, a sake-brewing area to the south of Kyoto and at Nanzenji, one of the loveliest temples in the city.
If you are adventurous and want to travel on your own, I urge you to purchase this book before you leave and plan your Kyoto visit to include at least one of her fascinating walks.

Having just attended both the Jidai Matsuri (Festival of Ages)in Kyoto Imperial Park and Fire Festival in Kurama I wish I brought this book along. I missed some great opportunities to visit some interesting places mentioned in this book! Great on background, history and ancient sites in the Kyoto region! What the book lacks is information on Modern Kyoto which is also is facinating and offers plenty of eye candy too! Perhaps that is asking too much? But Kyoto does offer more historical sites than other cities in Japan due to the Allied forces not bombing this city as other cities in Japan were not so fortunate as Kyoto. And this book certainly does an excellent job in providing self guided walking tours of all of the historical and some modern sites in Kyoto! I would recommend bringing this book along with a modern guide as well but I have yet to find a excellent one.

We purchased several guide books in planning our trip to Kyoto. This book was referred to far more than the others.

If you enjoy exploring on your own and blazing your own, private path, I have not found a book that compares. Its detailed maps, descriptions and histories made our trip a joy. It's not full of information about restaurants and shopping, but the regular guides have plenty of that. As a walking guide or as a fun, insightful history of the city's sights and neighborhoods, it excels. It is also a fun read. We couldn't see all we wanted to in the days we were there, but we eventually get back to Japan, this book will be packed!

This is a carefully written book but, if you know nothing about Kyoto, the title might give you the false impression that it is a city that you can easily navigate on foot, which you cannot. It is a large city with good public transport but english is not as common as in Tokyo (naturally) and navigating the buses and trains that are required to reach the many destinations listed, can be very hard for a non-japanese speaker.

The text is densely written, very detailed but I found it to be a little impenetrable. More of a book for the return visitor wanting to really 'dig-in' to the city and explore every nook and cranny and not (like me) for someone coming for the first time and wanting a guide to a few places reachable on foot with a minimum of fuss. I also found the maps a little difficult to use, as the larger area maps do not easily 'map' to the more detailed ones.

I am preparing for a seven day holiday in Kyoto and needed a book that cited in detail the sites and attractions Kyoto has to offer.

Clancy's book is comprehensive, containing some 290 pages and over 30 images to support the descriptions of 30 walking routes covering Kyoto's sites and attractions. These routes cover all the major attractions, such as Kiyomizudera, Ginkakuji and Daisen'in, just to name a few. It also covers 'other' attractions such as the Kyoto Handicraft Museum and Umekoji Locomotive Museum.

The text is difficult to fault, given the detailed nature of the walking routes Clancy describes. Clancy's text is thoroughly researched, supported by the knowledge and information gleaned from her own lengthy stay in Kyoto and that of her colleagues, fellow tourist writer/s, local residents and local commerce operators.

The walking tour maps are simple line drawings, the use of which is integrated with the text. For example, turn right here, walk toward 'x' and similar instructions. No other comments can be made here; the usefulness of the maps will be disclosed when they are used walking the various routes in Kyoto shortly.

The images are all black and white, and the greatest criticism of the book. They often illustrate more obscure attractions referred to in the text, and thus they do not support the text and are of limited use (hence only giving the book four stars). I find that use of the internet to source pictures of the various attractions you are reading about alleviated these shortcomings though.

In closing, I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking at doing sightseeing in Kyoto. Overall this book is infinately better than Lonely Planet Japan/ Kyoto in identifying the attractions and the history beind them. Make sure you source your own pictures though!

With its antiquarian history, buildings, memorials, and natural surroundings, Kyoto is one of Japan's prize destinations for tourists from around the world. Judith Clancy draws upon her experience and expertise arising from living in Kyoto for the last 38 years in "Exploring Kyoto: On Food In The Ancient Capital", a superbly written and thoroughly "user friendly" guide to what this beautiful city and its surrounding countryside have to offer. In this substantially revised, timely updated, and expanded new edition (offer two new routes, as well as including both a geographical and a cultural topography), "Exploring Kyoto" offers detailed maps tracing each of thirty exploratory excursions that range from the bustling downtown quarts to remote mountaintop shrines. Enhanced with more than thirty descriptive photos, tips on etiquette and behavior, as well as a full and complete index to all cited attractions and site, "Exploring Kyoto" is the ideal travel guide.

Bought this for my wife's first trip to Kyoto. Excellent! We will use it for our trip together next year.

I used this book quite a lot on a recent trip to Kyoto - I found the in-depth descriptions of the historical and cultural relevance of the sites to be extremely interesting and added a lot to my trip. I found the maps more helpful than those in my other guidebooks once I was in the neighborhood of interest - but there are a lot of streets not named in the book, and a lot of instructions along the lines of "go two blocks north, then left at the little store, then west until you see the sign in Japanese". Those are not very useful if you don't read Japanese, and I often found myself using my other guidebooks to get me to the general locale, and then used this book to help me orient myself within the neighborhood. The other thing is that every trip within the book reads as though it is equally interesting and beautiful, whereas there were clear indications in my other guidebooks that certain temples/shrines were only worth seeing if you were in the area. There is way too much to see in Kyoto even if you're there for a week or more, so a little more discerning eye towards what to prioritize would have been nice. Overall though, a really great book to explore Kyoto on foot.