I am currently starting to plan for a three weeks journey to the Kansai / Kinki region. I am very interested in Japanese arts, architecture, historic gardens, history and nature and not to forget Japanese food. This will be my third journey to Japan, with my first two I visited Tokyo. Beside that I am kind of a "slow traveler" who prefers not to hurry from on place to the other but taking time for really seeing and understanding.
So far I plan:
Arrival: Around May 8 (after the Golden Week, hoping that Kyoto will then be a little bit less crowded), stay until around May 28.
Flight: to Tokyo (Narita)
Transportation in Japan: use JR pass (21 days)
Hotel: Use Hilton Osaka as my base camp (am a Hilton Honors member and can use points and get acceptable prices by that)
Most of the time I plan to spend in Kyoto visiting the most important temples, shrines, gardens and museums (8-10 days) and Nara (2 Days). The other ten days I would like to use for trips of one or two days to:
- Ise
- Wakayama - Nachkatsuura - Kumano - the train line surrounding the Kii peninsula
- Himeji
- Uji and Otsu
-Koyasan
-Miyajima
-Hiroshima
- one or two days of trekking in the Kii mountains
I am afraid this is already too much for the three weeks but would like to ask you,
- whether this plan makes sense,
- whether I should skip and replace some things
- which part of the Kumano Kodo you would suggest fro trekking?
- does it make sense to have my base camp in Osaka?
Many thanks in advance
P.S.: If you read or speak German I have written a detailed report about my last visit to Tokyo in Nov/Dec 2015, which also includes about 300 pictures mainly from the historic gardens in Tokyo:
http://www.vielfliegertreff.de/reiseberichte/90468-hundert-ansichten-v...