One and half days in Kyoto, halfday Nara

We will be visiting Japan for a week on the end of November to early December. We have allocated 2 days for a joint Kyoto-Nara trip with Osaka as our homebase.

For day 1 we plan to see Kinkakuji and the Higashiyama District. We are thinking of starting with Kinkakuji then bus to Ginkakuji and walk through the Path of Philosophy to Nanzenji all the way to Kodaiji and Higashiyama streets. We plan to end at Kiyomizudera and if possible have dinner at Gion.

For day 2, we plan to swing by Fushimi-Inari in the morning (since this is already along the JR nara line) and spend the afternoon in Nara to see Todaiji and the deer park.

Is our day 1 too hectic? We dont plan to see the smaller temples along the Higashiyama route and focus on the major sites such as Kiyomizu, Ginkakuji, Nanzenji, Kodaiji and the preserved Higashiyama streets. Should we just do Kinkakuji and Fushimi in the morning of Day 2 instead? Is this even possible since I believe they're in opposite sides of Kyoto.

Many thanks!

I do not know your travel pace so I cannot say.

But if you ask me whether it is possible. I would say I have walked and explored the Kiymizudera to Yasaka Shrine in less than an hour.

For 'Nanzenji to Silver Pavillion', stopping by various smaller shrines, and probably introducing honen-in to the world, it can take about two hours.

I've also done Kinkakuji, Ryoanji, Ninnanji, Arashiyama in five hours.

considering the amount of daylight hours in a day, I would say it is surely possible.

Half of Kiyomizu is in construction, I went recently and even though its iconic, I would have skipped it had I known. I have been there several times however so maybe it's worth the trip if you haven't been. It's also jammed pack with tourists, more so than kinkakuji (or I picked a bad day to go).