Hi guys, first of all thanks for reading the post! My wife and I are going at the end of march/begining of april to Japan for our first time and we are almost done with the itinerary. There are a few things we are still deciding and we would love to see if you can recomend.
Day 1 (Arriving to tokyo) –
We arrive tokyo around 5 pm so we pretty much are going to book a dinner reservation near our hotel.
Day 2 (Tokyo) –
We are planing on visiting Asakusa site, Sensouji and Kaminarimon. At the end before sundown we are planning on going to either skytree or other building to get the view
Day 3 (Tokyo) –
Visiting Meji Shrine, going to Shibuya crossing, Kosaten and Shinjuku to complete the day
Day 4 (Tokyo) –
Getting up early to visit Tsujiki Fish market, go to Ueno Park to visit Cherry Blossoms spots, going to pokemon center because yes and finalyzing in teamlabs musuem
Day 5 (Kyoto) –
Departing tokyo early and visiting kyoto , getting to know higashiyama, kiyomizudera and walking to see if we can see the geishas
Day 6 (Kyoto) –
Seeing more kyoto like the philosopher path to see cherry blossoms, Kinkakuji, Arashiyama, Otagi Temple, Inari and Fushimi Inari Taisha
Day 7 (Nara day trip) –
Day trip to Nara using the train, going to the big budda , deer park, Kasuga Taisha, Todaji and getting back to kyoto
Day 8 (Himeji day trip) –
Visiting Himeji castle and Kokoen gardens for the cherry blossoms as they have told me it is one of the best spots to see the cherry blossoms and according to calendar it is going to be peak day there
Day 9 (Hiroshima day trip) –
Visiting Hiroshima for the day and getting the most out of the musuems
Day 10 (Osaka) –
Moving early to Osaka and visiting the fortress, visiting also de comercial distric of umeda, eating local street food and dotombori
Day 11 (Naoshima) –
My wife is a big architecture and art fan so this is a must for us to visit, we are planing on leaving Osaka and arrive around 9.30 to Naoshima via Okayama with the ferry. After there, leaving around 5 to stay in Okayama for the night
Day 12 (Kobe) –
At the morning, we are going to get to know Okayama and the city, visiting one of the three more famous gardens in all Japan. Afterwards we would leave to Kobe to have a good dinner and stay there for the night
Day 13 (Tokyo) –
Arriving to Tokyo and using the time to know Ginza, walking around and have a good dinner as our planes depart at 6 am next morning.
What we are strugguling a bit is that we dont know if the stay in Okayama and the day later to Kobe are “wasted” days and we are deciding on what would be better between this option or this other two
Alternative B
After Naoshima, returning to Osaka to stay there for the night as it would have been a really long day because of travel
Day 12 (Hakone) – Visiting Hakone and stay in a Villa with a private Onsen or a Ryokan
Day 13 (Tokyo) – Returning to tokyo and spending the time there as much as we can
Alternative C
Removing a day from Tokyo and after the Naoshima trip, return to Osaka for the night.
The aditional days would be to go to Takayama and staying there and visiting the next day Shirakawago
We are deciding and we are really struggling to decide between the options and we want to have all book by friday. We would love a recomendation between the three alternatives or even if you have a better option to add or to delete from our itinerary, we would love the feedback
Thanks to all reading!