Neighbourhood guide

Shijo-Karasuma

Kyoto's old bank corner, with kimono streets one block back

Shijo-Karasuma is the crossing where the subway meets the Hankyu line from Osaka, and by 1915 three of the big banks stood on it. It doesn't look much like the Kyoto on the posters. Walk one block west, though, and you're on Muromachi-dori, the old kimono wholesalers' street, near the lanes where the Gion Matsuri floats are built every July.

The trams of 1912 made Karasuma-dori and Shijo-dori the city's main roads. To lay the tracks, the city widened them to 27 metres and 21.8, the banks moved onto Karasuma, and old kimono houses opened department stores on Shijo. Daimaru Kyoto opened that October, on the spot it still trades from. Sanjo-dori, the main east-west street before them, kept its red brick.

Come here for early starts and wet days. You can have breakfast from 7:00, Rokkaku-do's gate opens at 6:00, and if it rains there's the manga museum and a history museum that stays open until 19:30. You can walk all of it, from Nijo-dori down to Inaba-do, about a kilometre and a half.

Getting there

From Kyoto Station the Karasuma Line gets you to Shijo in about 4 minutes and to Karasuma Oike, where it crosses the Tozai Line, in 6. Hankyu limited expresses from Osaka-umeda reach Karasuma in about 41 minutes, and Karasuma's joined underground to Shijo Station and Daimaru Kyoto.

16 places

Shijo (Karasuma Line) · Karasuma (Hankyu) stations

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What to see

Start at Rokkaku-do, a block off Karasuma-dori, where the Ikenobo priests shaped ikebana in the 1400s. For its six-sided roof from above, ride the viewing lift in the ten-storey building just south of the Ikenobo Kaikan. A few minutes north are the Sanjo-dori Brick Buildings, among them the 1902 Nakagyo Post Office and the 1906 Bank of Japan branch. The bank's now the Museum of Kyoto annex, and it's free to walk into.

When it rains, go to school. The Kyoto International Manga Museum fills the former Tatsuike Elementary School with about 50,000 manga on 200 metres of shelves, and you can read any of them (¥1,200). Kyoto Art Center, in Meirin Elementary School's 1931 building, runs free galleries until 20:00, and its Maeda Coffee cooks inside an artwork, a kitchen tower by Teppei Kaneuji and Toshikatsu Ienari.

South of Shijo-dori, you can sit in on Bukko-ji's 7:00 morning service, and D&Department Kyoto has run a design shop and canteen in its grounds since 2014. Inaba-do, a few minutes away, holds a handmade market on the 8th of every month. The 23 floats of the Gion Matsuri's first procession stand in the streets round here for the yoiyama evenings of 14 to 16 July, and they set off from the Shijo-Karasuma crossing at 9:00 on the 17th.

Where to eat and drink

Breakfast is what this area does best. Inoda Coffee's main shop seats 211 on Sakaimachi-dori and opens at 7:00. Maeda Coffee, in a former kimono merchant's building since 1981, opens at the same hour, roasts on a Probat in the room and makes spaghetti Napolitan its house dish. Smoking's allowed, but you'll find the non-smoking seats at the back. Daimaru Kyoto's two basement floors are food halls, and Kameya Yoshinaga, making Kyoto sweets since 1803, has a tearoom out at Shijo-Horikawa.

For dinner, book Kushikura on TableCheck. It grills chicken over binchotan charcoal in a machiya more than 100 years old, with courses from ¥3,000 to ¥6,000. Sake Bar Yoramu on Nijo-dori pours everything by the 60 ml glass, from new unpasteurised sake to vintages over 30 years old. It doesn't take bookings, but if you phone 15 minutes ahead the owner will hold seats when there are some.

Where to stay

Stay by a station and you won't need the bus. Ace Hotel Kyoto, the chain's first in Japan, is part of Shinpuhkan and connects straight to Karasuma Oike Station. Near Shijo Station you'll find chain hotels, with Daiwa Roynet Hotel Kyoto Shijo Karasuma a minute from exit 5 on Karasuma-dori and Mitsui Garden Hotel Kyoto Shijo six minutes away on Nishinotoin-dori.

It suits you if you'll ride a lot of trains. Higashiyama, the stop for Shoren-in and Chion-in, is about 5 minutes from Karasuma Oike on the Tozai Line. The yoiyama crowds fill these streets every July, so skip mid-July unless you're coming for the Gion Matsuri.

How to do it in a day

Be at Inoda Coffee for 7:00, then walk a few minutes west to Rokkaku-do. Walk Sanjo-dori east from the Karasuma crossing, where a 1920 road origin marker stands on the southeast corner, to the Museum of Kyoto, which opens at 10:00. Cut back west to Eirakuya on Muromachi-dori, a cotton merchant since 1615, for a tenugui. Lunch is Kushikura, which opens at 11:30.

After lunch the manga museum's a few minutes' walk west (last entry 16:30). Head south to Kyoto Art Center, then Morita Washi on Higashinotoin-dori for paper before 18:00 (17:00 on Saturdays). Be at Sake Bar Yoramu when it opens at 18:00, then eat in Shinpuhkan, where the restaurants run to 22:00. Come Thursday to Saturday, the only days when everything on this route is open.

Nearby neighbourhoods

Kawaramachi Downtown Kyoto, between Nishiki Market and the Kamo River 26 places · under 1 km away

Nijo The shogun's castle, with the Shinsengumi's Mibu a walk south 17 places · 1.2 km away

Gion The teahouse streets below Yasaka Shrine, best early or at dusk 25 places · 1.5 km away

Imperial Palace Free palace walks, a park that never shuts, and the court's old shops 23 places · 2.0 km away

The best of Shijo-Karasuma

Best temple Rokkaku-do The gate opens at 6:00 and entry's free. Don't miss the six-sided navel stone just inside, from when Kyoto thought of this spot as its centre.

Best rainy day Kyoto International Manga Museum About 50,000 manga on open shelves in an old primary school, and your ticket lets you back in the same day. It's closed on Wednesdays.

Best breakfast Inoda Coffee The Kyoto Breakfast is ¥1,890, and it's served until 11:00. Your coffee comes with milk and sugar already in, the way Inoda's always served it.

Best night Sake Bar Yoramu Eight or nine seats at one counter, Wednesday to Saturday from 18:00. Come in a group of three or fewer.

Things to do in Shijo-Karasuma

Temple · Free Bukko-ji Bukko-ji is the head temple of the Shinshu Bukkoji school of Pure Land Buddhism, moved to this spot in 1586 on Toyotomi Hideyoshi's orders. Its founder's hall, rebuilt in 1884, is a single-storey wooden hall 26.5 metres wide and 33.1 deep, and the Amida Hall next to it dates from 1904. Since 2014 the grounds have also held D&Department Kyoto, a design shop and gallery with a canteen that cooks with local produce.

Shopping · ¥¥ Daimaru Kyoto Daimaru is the department store on Shijo-dori just west of Takakura-dori, and its food halls fill both basement floors. Le Petitmec, the Kyoto bakery, has a counter on B1. The eighth floor is restaurants, open later than the rest of the store.

Shopping · ¥¥ Eirakuya Eirakuya has sold cotton cloth in Kyoto since 1615, and today it's known for tenugui, printed cotton hand towels, in patterns that follow Kyoto's festivals and the 24 seasons of the old calendar. The main shop on Muromachi-dori shares a building with the Hosotsuji Ihee Museum, named after Hosotsuji Ihee, the name 14 generations of heads of the house have carried. The museum shows about 30 tenugui from the Edo period to now.

Temple · Free Inaba-do Inaba-do, formally Byodo-ji, is a Shingon temple where people pray to its Yakushi, the healing Buddha, for protection from cancer. The temple dates its founding to 1003, and its buildings were rebuilt in 1886. It's also the setting of two kyogen comedies, Inabado and Onigawara.

Cafe · ¥¥ Inoda Coffee Inoda Coffee's main shop is a 211-seat coffee house behind a machiya front on Sakaimachi-dori, with staff in bow ties and gingham-check tables. The coffee comes with milk and sugar already in, the way Inoda has served it from the start. Go early for the Kyoto Breakfast, a plate of ham, scrambled eggs and salad with bread, a small orange juice and a drink.

Cafe · ¥ Kameya Yoshinaga Kameya Yoshinaga has been making Kyoto sweets since 1803, and its main shop is on Shijo-dori near Horikawa. Ubatama, a jet-black sweet that looks like a blackberry lily seed, has been made since the shop was founded. The newer slice yokan is red bean jelly cut into thin sheets that you lay on bread and toast.

Food · ¥¥ Kushikura Kushikura grills chicken skewers over binchotan charcoal in a Kyoto machiya more than 100 years old, just north of Oike-dori on Takakura-dori. Courses run from ¥3,000 to ¥6,000, and the ¥6,000 Iroori course finishes with tori-soba, noodles in chicken broth. The seasonal dish changes through the year, and this autumn it's hamo and matsutake in a dobin-mushi broth.

Museum · Free Kyoto Art Center Kyoto Art Center took over the 1931 building of Meirin Elementary School, which opened in 1869 and closed in 1993. Since 2000 it has run galleries and performances, and it lends studios to young artists free of charge. The ground-floor Maeda Coffee cooks inside an artwork, a box-shaped kitchen tower by the artist Teppei Kaneuji and the architect Toshikatsu Ienari.

Museum · ¥ Kyoto International Manga Museum The manga museum fills an early Showa school building, the former Tatsuike Elementary School, with about 50,000 manga on 200 metres of open shelves. You can take any of them down and read. Shonen titles are on the first floor, shojo on the second and seinen on the third, and there's a corner of translated manga from around the world.

Cafe · ¥ Maeda Coffee Maeda Coffee's main shop opened in 1981 in a former kimono merchant's building near Shijo-Karasuma, and it seats 100. A German Probat roaster works in the shop, so the room smells of beans. The house speciality is spaghetti Napolitan, and the cakes and pies are made in-house.

Shopping · ¥ Morita Washi Morita Washi is a paper wholesaler that opened in 1927 and has traded from Higashinotoin-dori since 1942. Its shop sells washi from papermakers all over Japan, plus postcards, letter paper and small things made from it, and keeps the prices low. In 1973 the company worked on a national compendium of handmade paper for the Mainichi newspaper.

Museum · ¥ Museum of Kyoto The Museum of Kyoto covers the city's history on its second floor and puts on large special exhibitions above. Even if you skip both, walk through the annex, the old Bank of Japan Kyoto branch, a red-brick building finished in 1906 to a design by Tatsuno Kingo and his student Nagano Uheiji. It's an Important Cultural Property and free to enter.

Temple · Free Rokkaku-do Rokkaku-do, formally Choho-ji, is a small temple a block off Karasuma-dori, named for its six-sided main hall (the one standing now was rebuilt in 1877). Its priests, the Ikenobo line, shaped ikebana here in the 1400s. Just inside the gate, look for the hexagonal heso-ishi, the 'navel stone', named because Kyoto once thought of this spot as its centre.

Nightlife · ¥¥ Sake Bar Yoramu Yoramu is a sake bar with eight or nine seats at one counter, on a quiet stretch of Nijo-dori. Every sake is picked to be interesting rather than bland, from unpasteurised new sake to amber vintages more than 30 years old. It's all poured by the 60 ml glass, so you can try several side by side, with a little food to go with them but nothing like a full meal.

Neighbourhood · Free Sanjo-dori Brick Buildings Sanjo-dori was Kyoto's main east-west street until the trams of 1912 pulled the centre south to Shijo, and plenty of the buildings put up along it since the Meiji era are still standing. Look for the red brick of the 1902 Nakagyo Post Office at the Higashinotoin corner and the 1906 Bank of Japan branch that's now the Museum of Kyoto annex.

Shopping · ¥¥ Shinpuhkan Shinpuhkan wraps around the old Kyoto Central Telephone Office, a 1926 building by Yoshida Tetsuro that in 1983 became the first entry on Kyoto City's list of designated and registered cultural properties. It reopened in June 2020 with about 20 shops, the Uplink Kyoto cinema in the basement and Ace Hotel Kyoto, the chain's first in Japan, whose design Kengo Kuma supervised. A passage cuts through it from Karasuma-dori to Higashinotoin-dori.

Stay in Shijo-Karasuma

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