Kyoto temples that open at night for autumn leaves

For a few weeks each autumn, a handful of Kyoto temples and shrines reopen their gates after dark, hang lights in the maples and sell a separate evening ticket that has nothing to do with the daytime one. The windows are short, they are set year by year against when the leaves actually turn, and the closing hour is usually earlier than visitors expect. Each entry here carries the dates, the evening hours and the night fee as the temples and listings printed them, so you can build a route rather than guess at one.

Places in this collection

  • Rokuoin — A Zen temple in Arashiyama that caps its autumn night viewing at 150 visitors per evening, which is why it books out and why the grounds st…
  • Kitano Tenmangu Shrine — The Momiji Garden runs along the Kamiya River on the surviving stretch of Hideyoshi's Odoi earthwork, with roughly 350 maples on both banks…
  • Konkai-Komyoji Temple — Founded in 1175 and known locally as Kurodani, this Jōdo-sect head temple sits on a hill above the city, which is why its night opening rea…
  • Kōdai-ji — The evening viewing here is not only lanterns in the trees: projection art is thrown across the raked sand of the dry garden and up into th…
  • Kiyomizu-dera — About 1,000 Japanese maples cover the hillside below the temple, and the night ticket puts you on the wooden stage above them with the city…
  • Eikan-dō (Zenrin-ji) — Around 3,000 maples, and the reason to come after dark is Hōjō Pond: the Tahō-tō pagoda and the bridges double in the black water, which is…

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