The UNESCO lists many historic monuments of ancient Kyoto as World Heritage Sites and the architecture of the city impresses each Kyoto visitor. Certainly, it is impossible to enumerate and describe each temple and shrine in Kyoto that comprises the national treasure of entire Japan, though to describe several of them is really worth doing.
The Katsura Imperial Villa is one of Japan's finest architectural treasures, set in wooden surroundings. It is a fascinating amalgam of the secular and unofficial tradition in the Japanese palace architecture. The Katsura Imperial Villa was built in the beginning of the seventeenth century by Kobori Enshu, an architect and a tea ceremony master, who wished to express in this building his ideals of rustic simplicity and picturesque nature on a larger scale than the earliest architectural attempts evidence. The Katsura Imperial Villa consists of three main buildings, Ko-shoin, Chu-shoin and Shin-goten, the first one is in a more ceremonial shoin style and the latter two are in a more intimate sukiya style. The Villa reflects the 14th century's tendency of nobility to reject the decors and grandeur of the town palace in the way that the palace should above all have kept the harmony with a natural setting and surroundings. In fact, the Sukiya style, employed in the Katsura Imperial Villa building, traces its origin to the farmer's cottage and the mountain hut rather than to the traditional palace architecture.
Originally, the Katsura buildings were framed in light timbers, using the triangular truss in the roof, and closed by plain walls, lacking pillars, brackets, a foundation podium and a lean-to ambulatory of the Chinese style. Wood was left plain, sometimes even retaining its bark. Intimacy was a keynote, distinguishing Katsura's both exterior and interior design.
What concerns Kyoto shrines, it is interesting to point out the Fushimi Inari Shrine as the most famous of several thousands of shrines, dedicated to Inari across Japan. Inari is one of the most mysterious deities of Japan. He is both male and female. Inari is the Shinto goddess of rice or god of food, and the fox is Inari's messenger and the Japanese believe that he (or she) can assume a fox's shape. Therefore, you can see many fox statues at the Inari shrines. The Fushimi-Inari Shrine is much frequented by merchants, tradesmen and businessmen, who pray for prosperity.
The Fushimi Inari Shrine is also prominent for the countless torii gates, offerings by worshippers that cover the hiking trails of Inarisan, a wooded mountain behind the shrine's main buildings. It takes about two hours to walk along the trail of Inarisan. Along the hiking trail, there are small restaurants that serve a specialty of the Inari shrine, Kitsune Udon ("Fox Udon"), a noodle soup, topped with pieces of aburaage (fried tofu), a favorite food of foxes. The Fushimi Inari Shrine is situated outside the JR Inari Station, the second station from Kyoto on the JR Nara Line. A train ride takes five minutes and costs hundred and forty Yens from the Kyoto Station.
The last, but not the least, let us mention some other most famous sites in Kyoto that are worth visiting or reading: the Kiyomizu-dera, a magnificent wooden temple, supported by pillars off the slope of a mountain; Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Pavilion; Ginkaku-ji, the Silver Pavilion; Heian Jingu, a Shinto shrine, celebrating the Imperial family; Ryoan-ji, famous for its rock garden; the Kyoto Imperial Palace, a home to the Emperors of Japan for many centuries; and the Shugaku-in Imperial Villa, one of Japan's best Japanese gardens.
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