Nara and Yoshino in 6 days: itinerary and hotels

Tōdai-ji

An hour's drive from Kyoto. Nara was the capital from 710 to 784, under the name Heijō-kyō. The Tōdai-ji, completed in 752 on the orders of Emperor Shōmu, cost enough to nearly ruin the country. Its Daibutsu, a fifteen-metre, five-hundred-tonne bronze Buddha, consumed almost all the bronze available in Japan at the time. The present hall, rebuilt in 1709 after two fires, is now only two-thirds of its original size and remains one of the largest wooden buildings in the world.

Booking · Temple, official website: www.todaiji.or.jp/en/ (new tab)

Nara Park

Five hundred hectares where about twelve hundred sika deer roam free, regarded since the 8th century as the messengers of the Kasuga deities: killing a deer was a capital crime until 1637. They bow their heads to ask for a biscuit, and bite when you take too long.

Kasuga-taisha

Founded in 768 as the tutelary shrine of the Fujiwara clan, rebuilt identically every twenty years for centuries. Its avenues hold close to two thousand stone lanterns and its galleries a thousand bronze lanterns, all donated by worshippers: they are lit twice a year, in February and August. The Kasugayama forest behind it, off-limits to logging since 841, is a stretch of primary forest at the heart of the city.

Kōfuku-ji and the Nara National Museum

The Kōfuku-ji, the Fujiwara temple moved here in 710, has a five-storey pagoda from 1426, fifty metres tall. Its Kokuhōkan hall keeps the Ashura, an 8th-century clay statue with three faces and six arms, one of the most beloved works of art in Japan. The Nara National Museum, next door, holds the country's finest collection of Buddhist sculpture.