Places to seeWhere to go in Wakayama
Start with the first of these. Each is worth half a day.
Wakayama和歌山県
Wakayama is the mountainous peninsula south of Osaka, and it is where people go to walk and to sleep in temples.
Wakayama is the mountainous peninsula south of Osaka, and it is where people go to walk and to sleep in temples.
Start with the first of these. Each is worth half a day.
Koyasan is a working Buddhist town on a plateau at 800 metres, founded twelve hundred years ago, with more than a hundred temples. Around fifty of them take guests — you sleep on the floor in a temple room, eat vegetarian food prepared by monks, and can attend the morning service at six. It is a night unlike a hotel, and it needs booking well ahead.
Getting in: No airport of its own — Kansai Airport is the nearest. Trains from Osaka; the Koyasan line ends in a cable car
Pick the season first and the days will arrange themselves.
The best walking season. Cherry blossom on the plateau is later than the coast, in mid-April.
Heavy rain in June, and this is one of the wettest parts of Japan. Koyasan stays cool in August.
Autumn colour at Koyasan in early November is the peak of the year.
Snow on the plateau and freezing mornings in the temples. Coastal Shirahama stays mild.
