Shugakuin Imperial Villa

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One of our favorite places in Kyoto was the Shugakuin Imperial Palace (as you can see from the score).

The gardens require that you apply to enter them in advance; we applied about three months in advance providing passport info and location where we are staying.  They only admit a limited number of visitors every day.  We also did one other tour, but the third palace was already at capacity.

View when you arrive at the upper villa
The set-up was similar to the visit to the Sento Imperial Gardens.  We got headsets and off we went.  

 The land has three villas: (literally) the lower, middle, and upper tea houses.   A you could suspect, they are at different altitudes.  The property only has tea houses; it was not a place that the shogun could even spend the night.  The shogun designed the gardens and ensured the views would be spectacular around each corner.

 The lower villa was subtle clothed in shadows and moss and delicate greenery.  



The grounds were linked with rice fields and flowers.





Aren't the fields spectacular?  

 The middle villa was beautiful as well.  It has the most famous shelves in Japan, the floating shelves.  They are supposed to remind the viewer of floating mist.


They keep the buildings open and the murals can be seen.  As we walked to the upper mural, the view is obstructed until you reach the top.  Then, the shrubs part leaving a pretty spectacular view (see the first picture of this blog)!

The upper villa was by far the best villa -- such beautiful views and the lake is beautiful.




The pond was beautiful and the maple leaves were just starting to turn.  We loved seeing the pond and each turn showed a different view.



Highly recommend this stop.  Just remember to book it as soon as possible!

Time at Villa: 1.5 hrs
Times visited: 1
Overall: A
Location: Shugakuin Yabusoe, Sakyo Ward, Kyoto, Kyoto Prefecture 606-8052, Japan

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