Nara for First-Timers: A Beginner’s Guide to Japan’s First Capital

Why Nara

Long before Kyoto, Nara was Japan’s first permanent capital. In the 8th century, emperors built temples here on a scale the country had never seen. Many of them still stand.

Today, Nara is one of the easiest side trips in Japan. The Kintetsu limited express gets you here from Kyoto in about 35 minutes, and Osaka Namba is around 40 minutes away. Most of the big sights sit inside one green, walkable park, shared with over 1,300 free-roaming deer.

Plenty of visitors give Nara an afternoon. We think it deserves more. Stay a few nights and you’ll see the temples at opening time, before the day-trippers arrive, and walk the lantern paths of Kasuga Taisha as the light fades.

Todai-ji and the Great Buddha

Start here, and start early. Emperor Shomu founded Todai-ji in 745, and its Great Buddha is Japan’s largest bronze statue: around 15 metres tall and 500 tonnes. He sits inside the Daibutsu-den, a 48-metre wooden hall often called the largest wooden building in the world. The current hall dates from 1709 and is only two-thirds the size of the original.

You walk in through Nandaimon, the Great South Gate, guarded by two carved wooden Nio statues around 7 metres tall. Look up as you pass. They are some of the most powerful carvings in Japan.

Good to know: the hall opens at 8am from November to March and 7.30am from April to October. Entry to the Great Buddha Hall is ¥800, or ¥1,200 with the Todai-ji Museum.

Kofuku-ji and its treasures

A short walk west of Todai-ji, Kofuku-ji was the family temple of the Fujiwara clan, the most powerful family in Japan’s early court. They moved it here from Asuka in 710, the year Nara became the capital.

The real draw is the Treasure Hall. Kofuku-ji holds 18 of Japan’s National Treasures, more than many museums, and the star is the Ashura statue: a slender, three-faced guardian with a look of quiet concentration that people travel across Japan to see.

Good to know: the temple’s famous five-storey pagoda is under a long-term restoration, scheduled to run until March 2034, and currently covered, so don’t plan your visit around it.

Isuien garden

Between Kofuku-ji and Todai-ji, Isuien is the garden most visitors walk straight past. It’s two gardens in one: a front garden from the mid-17th century and a larger rear garden laid out by a wealthy merchant in 1899.

The trick is in the view. The rear garden borrows its backdrop from the landscape around it, framing the roof of Todai-ji’s Great South Gate and the slopes of Mount Wakakusa as if they were part of the design. Entry is ¥1,200, and it’s closed on Tuesdays.

Nara Park and the deer

The deer are the first thing everyone mentions, and they live up to it. The 2024 count by the Nara Deer Preservation Foundation found 1,325 of them, wandering the lawns, temple paths and pavements. Local legend says the god of Kasuga Taisha arrived on a white deer, and they have been treated as sacred servants of the shrine ever since.

Vendors sell shika senbei, plain rice crackers made for the deer. Many deer have learned to bow for them, and you can bow back. A few tips:

• Feed them only shika senbei, never your own snacks
• Hold the crackers out of sight until you’re ready, as the deer get pushy
• Give stags a wide berth in autumn, the rutting season
• Keep paper maps and tickets in your bag, as they’ll eat those too

Kasuga Taisha and its lanterns

A forest path from the park leads to Kasuga Taisha, Nara’s great Shinto shrine, which traces its roots to 768. Its bright vermilion halls are hung with around 3,000 lanterns. Stone lanterns line the approach through the trees, and bronze lanterns hang in rows inside.

Twice a year, at the Mantoro festivals in early February and mid August, every lantern is lit at once. Outside those nights, step into the Fujinami-no-ya hall, where lanterns glow in the dark all year round.

Naramachi, the old merchant town

A 10 to 15 minute walk south of Kintetsu Nara Station, Naramachi is where Nara’s merchants lived and traded. Its narrow lanes are lined with machiya, long wooden townhouses built narrow at the front because property tax was charged on street frontage.

Pop into Koshi-no-ie, a restored merchant house that’s free to visit, to see how the shop at the front gave way to living rooms behind. Gangoji, one of Nara’s seven great temples and part of its UNESCO listing, sits at the heart of the district. Between October and March, Harushika sake brewery pours a five-sake tasting for ¥700. The rest is cafes, craft shops and tea houses, made for an unhurried afternoon.

What to eat in Nara

Nara’s food is simple, old and rooted in the region. Five things to try:

• Kakinoha-zushi: salted mackerel pressed onto rice and wrapped in a persimmon leaf, which gives it a gentle fragrance. It travels well, so pick some up for the train.
• Yomogi mochi at Nakatanidou: on Higashimuki shopping street, near Kofuku-ji, the makers pound mochi at astonishing speed, reportedly more than 400 strikes a minute. The result is soft mugwort mochi filled with sweet bean paste, eaten warm.
• Narazuke: vegetables such as gourd and cucumber, pickled several times and aged for up to two years. Rich, sweet and very Nara.
• Miwa somen: Nara is the home of somen, ultra-thin wheat noodles. They’re served chilled in summer and in a hot broth, called nyumen, in winter.
• Chagayu: a green tea rice porridge, eaten in the morning and tied to Todai-ji’s Buddhist traditions.

Beyond the centre: Horyu-ji

With an extra half day, take the train south-west to Horyu-ji. Prince Shotoku and Empress Suiko founded it at the start of the 7th century, and its main hall, five-storey pagoda and middle gate are among the oldest wooden buildings in the world. In 1993 it became the first temple in Japan inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

It’s quieter than Todai-ji and feels a world away from the crowds. JR Horyuji Station is on the Yamatoji Line, then it’s a 20 minute walk or a short bus ride to the gates.

Getting around

Central Nara is compact. Todai-ji, Kofuku-ji, Isuien, Kasuga Taisha and Nara Park sit close together, and Naramachi is a short walk south, so most days you’ll be on foot. When your legs need a rest, the loop bus runs frequently from both JR Nara and Kintetsu Nara stations to the main sights.

Three days in Nara: a simple plan

1. Day one: Todai-ji at opening time, then Isuien garden. Spend the afternoon with the deer in Nara Park and finish on the lantern path to Kasuga Taisha as the light fades.
2. Day two: Kofuku-ji’s Treasure Hall in the morning, then warm mochi at Nakatanidou. Wander south into Naramachi for Koshi-no-ie, Gangoji and, between October and March, a sake tasting at Harushika.
3. Day three: Take the train out to Horyu-ji while it’s quiet, then come back for kakinoha-zushi and one last walk through the park.

When to go and how long to stay

Nara works all year, but each season has its moment:

How long? Give it three nights. That’s time for Todai-ji at opening, a full day in the park and at Kasuga Taisha, an afternoon in Naramachi and a half day at Horyu-ji, without rushing any of it.

See Nara with us

Our Japan’s Living Traditions: Sumo, Tea & Temples rail holiday gives Nara three full nights, at the 5* Shisui, a Luxury Collection Hotel, set in the Yoshiki-en garden between Todai-ji, Kofuku-ji and Kasuga Taisha. We’ve included a guided walking tour of Nara’s highlights and a chopstick making experience, where you’ll shape your own pair to take home.

Around Nara, you’ll watch sumo wrestlers train at dawn in Tokyo, stay in a ryokan in the shadow of Mount Fuji, join a tea ceremony in Kyoto and spend a night with the monks of Koyasan, before two nights in Osaka. Your flights and 14-day Japan Rail Pass are included.

13 nights from £3,999 per person. See the full itinerary