Customer Reviews

Kyoto: Seven Paths to The Heart of The City

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This book is a series of maps for walking tours in different parts of Kyoto. It tells how to get to the start of a walk, what you will see along the way, and how long the walk might take. You will see the site seeing jewels of this ancient and wonderful city, but you will also see their settings which are equally beautiful. Each walking tour has a little writeup on the area, its history, and pictures of what you might see. If this book has a shortcoming it is that it does not have enough pictures, but these are the picture you need to take, and hopefully share. This book is one of the best books for planing a visit to Kyoto if you are in the area for only a short time. I lived there for three years, and use this book to reminisce - along with my photographs of places along each walk.

I was privileged to have spent 4 months in Japan, but of all the places I visited, I fell in love with Kyoto. This is a marvelous book for doing all the walking that one needs to do here. Take a city tour first, but then leave several days to revisit all the places that enthralled you, and believe me, there will be many! Get this book and study it well; you won't be disappointed.

Whether you are a world traveler or an armchair traveler, I highly recommend this book. This book is especially invaluable for anyone planning a trip to Kyoto, Japan. The photographs are superb and will help you decide which sites to see if your time is limited. The very best of Kyoto is included here with excellent text, amazing photos, and easy-to-follow maps. I used this book to plan a week in Kyoto and found it so easy to locate all of the beautiful places that are illustrated in the book. (I was pleased to meet the photographer while in Kyoto. What great hospitality!) Whether you travel to Japan or not, you will surely enjoy this wonderful book. I bought more copies for my friends!

Kyoto is a bit of a maddening city. Most famous cities dazzle you with their charm, overwhelm the senses, and create larger-than-life impressions: I think of the first time I wandered into New York's Times Square, emerged from a metro station to encounter the madness that occurs when the Champs Elysees and eleven other roads combine to circle the Arc de Triomphe, stood amazed by the enormity of Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, or bathed in the sea of humanity and neon lights encountered at the Shibuya "scramble crossing" in Tokyo. Kyoto is much more demure and prefers to keep its secrets hidden away, out of view of the hoi polloi (or at least the camera toting tourist). I remember my first encounter with Kyoto more than a decade ago, stepping off the train with visions of what this ancient capital must look and be like, only to be confronted with a massive, modern, and somewhat generic and sterile train station. Exiting the station, one encounters a sea of nondescript concrete buildings and the orange and white monstrosity that is Kyoto Tower. I visited the main sights and was duly impressed by the wonders that are Kiyomizu-dera, Kinkaku-ji, Nijo-jo, etc. ... but even these were often "enjoyed" in the midst of a crush of school children shouting "Haro!", tour groups with identically dressed (and sharp-elbowed) grannies, and clueless foreigners exposing much more skin than would be acceptable to Japanese sensibilities. I enjoyed Kyoto, but left a bit bewildered by this modern city that seemed to lock up its historical sites in crowded, closed off pockets, like animals in a zoo.

Since then, I have been back to Kyoto at least a dozen times, and with each visit I appreciate more and more that the way to enjoy Kyoto (and see the REAL Kyoto) is to get off the beaten path and away from the tourist throngs. Even this is easier said than done, because the majority of the paths (beaten or otherwise) in Kyoto really are generic, uninteresting messes of concrete buildings and electrical wires. But when one *does* find that magical lane or alley with old Kyoto machiya townhouses, the small temple hidden away, quiet except for the chanting of a monk, and fragrant with a thousand years of burnt incense, or the tranquil bamboo forest half-hidden by pre-dawn mists, one finds the Kyoto he or she has been looking for, waiting to be found by the traveler experienced enough and patient enough to know where to look.

This is where Diane Durston's book comes in. This book is far from comprehensive, and what it does cover is often not on the main "must see" checklist of Kyoto sights. But, I daresay that someone who walks these "paths to the heart of the city" will have a deeper, more meaningful and profound experience (and deeper understanding of Kyoto) than someone just riding the Raku Buses, nose firmly entrenched in Lonely Planet Japan and checking off the must see sights along with the rest of the crowd. Even for the first time visitor to Kyoto, many of these walks are easy to incorporate into even the shortest trip to the city. After visiting the famous Kiyomizu-dera, stroll down Sanneizaka and Ninenzaka, past the quaint shops and teahouses, and continue on through the easy-to-miss Ishibe-koji and down to Yasaka-jinja. Before or after a show at Gion Corner, stroll the streets around the theater and the willow-draped Shirakawa canal where one might catch sight of a geisha (or at least a maiko). Take the time to visit the Fushimi Inari shrine, perhaps on a trip to or from Nara. Make the effort to travel up to Arashiyama, even though it's a bit out of the way. Even better, use this book along with Durston's "Old Kyoto", full of excellent ideas for shopping, eating, and sleeping in Kyoto. I just wish I had come across Durston's books the first time I visited Kyoto ... then again, perhaps my struggles to find the "real" Kyoto made me appreciate it all the more once I did find it. Or at least, that's what I'll tell myself! Learn from my mistake--get this book and "Old Kyoto", sooner rather than later! You won't regret it.

Impossibile reperire altrimenti questo libro, nè in Italia nè in Inghilterra presso le librerie. A Londra, presso Foyles, mi hanno suggerito di cercarlo su Amazon.
Il prezzo è più che conveniente per un volume che, benchè usato, si presenta in ottimo stato.

Although there are wonderful maps of out of the way places, the book is just too big to carry around easily.