The Blossom Issue

There is no harder booking in travel than Kyoto in cherry-blossom season, and April is when the whole world tries at once. The bloom lasts little more than a week, nobody can tell you which week until it is nearly upon you, and the entire city sells out around the guess. What follows is about staying well in a place that is, briefly, completely full.

The first decision is the neighbourhood, because it buys you calm or costs you it. The lantern-lit lanes of Gion and Higashiyama in the east are the postcard and the crush; a little north, or across the river, is quieter and often nicer to come back to at night. Wherever you land, book far earlier than feels reasonable — the good rooms go months, not weeks, ahead.

The second decision is the ryokan. The traditional inn — tatami floors, a futon laid out while you eat, a cedar bath, and a kaiseki dinner that is half the reason to be there — is either the best night of the trip or a set of rules you didn't know you were signing up for. Kyoto's oldest inns, Tawaraya and Hiiragiya among them, have done it for centuries and charge for it; a good modern hotel in the right district is no failure.

And when the great temples are shoulder to shoulder, as in April they will be, the relief is to head north. The moss gardens and thatched farmhouses of Ohara, half an hour out of the city, give the day back the quiet you actually came to Kyoto for.

Vivienne Hartwell, Editor-in-Chief