11-Day Wonders of Japan - Small Group 2027

Highlights

• Tokyo: Join your Travel Director and fellow travelers for dinner in Tokyo, where Japanese small bites offer your first taste of the flavors and dining styles you’ll encounter through the journey.
• Izu: Visit Nakaizu Winery Chateau for lunch with paired wines in the heart of central Izu. Set within a 10-hectare estate opened in 2000, the chateau brings together vineyard views, local winemaking and a chance to experience one of Shizuoka’s best-known wine estates.
• Shizuoka: Enjoy a green tea-inspired lunch that brings another expression of Shizuoka’s tea culture to the table. Green tea noodle soup adds an earthy, savory note to the experience, showing how one of the region’s best-known products shapes local cooking as well as what is brewed in the cup.
• Gujo Hachiman: Enjoy a kaiseki lunch, a traditional multi-course Japanese meal served as a sequence of carefully prepared dishes. Shaped by seasonal ingredients, balance and presentation, it offers a broader introduction to Japanese cuisine through a range of flavors, textures and techniques.
• Kanazawa: Enjoy a four-course lunch at Jardin Paul Bocuse, where the culinary heritage of Lyon is expressed through seasonal ingredients from Ishikawa and the wider Hokuriku region. Set within Kanazawa’s Shiinoki Cultural Complex, the restaurant brings French technique together with the produce of land and sea from this part of Japan.
• Kyoto: Come together on your final evening in Japan for a Kyo Kaiseki dinner, Kyoto’s traditional multi-course cuisine, accompanied by a performance from a maiko, an apprentice geisha, as part of one of the city’s best-known cultural traditions.
• Tokyo: Take in views across Tokyo from the observation deck of Tokyo Tower. From this landmark vantage point, you’ll see the scale of the city laid out below, from neighborhood districts and commercial centers to the skyline that defines Japan’s capital.
• Tokyo: Visit Sensoji Temple in Asakusa, founded in 628 AD and dating back almost 1,400 years. Tokyo’s oldest temple, it remains one of the city’s most important Buddhist sites. Enter through the Kaminarimon gate and see a temple complex that continues to serve as both a major place of worship and one of Japan’s most visited religious landmarks.
• Tokyo: Join a bonsai apprentice for a hands-on introduction to this traditional Japanese art. You’ll learn about its history, principles and techniques through planting, pruning and tying, and gain insight into a practice shaped by precision, patience and discipline.
• Izu: Ride the ropeway to the 452-meter summit of Mount Katsuragi at Izu Panorama Park. Alongside views across the Izu Peninsula and, on a clear day, Mount Fuji, at the top you’ll find Katsuragi Shrine, a historic shrine dating to the Heian period, still revered for protection from evil and disasters.
• Shizuoka: Board Japan’s bullet train and travel between destinations on one of the world’s most efficient rail networks. Known for its speed, precision and comfort, the Shinkansen is part of daily life in Japan and an experience in its own right, giving you a closer look at the country’s seamless approach to modern travel.
• Visit the Washi Paper Museum to learn about Japanese papermaking, a craft shaped by skill, patience and natural materials. You’ll create your own souvenir and gain hands-on insight into a tradition that continues to hold an important place in Japanese culture.
• Gujo Hachiman: Watch a demonstration of Gujo Odori, the traditional dance of Gujo Hachiman, performed at the town’s festivals for generations. Dressed in yukata and wooden geta, the dancers bring local stories to life through movements inspired by the castle, river and mountains, and you’ll have the chance to try the steps yourself.
• Gokayama: Explore Ainokura in the UNESCO-listed Gokayama region, where steeply pitched gassho-zukuri farmhouses rise from the mountain landscape. Designed for heavy snowfall, these traditional homes offer a closer look at the building methods and rural traditions of this part of Japan.
• Kanazawa: Visit Kenrokuen, one of Japan’s three great gardens and a strolling-style landscape garden shaped over generations by the Maeda lords of Kanazawa. You’ll see why it is so celebrated, with its carefully balanced design reflecting the six qualities traditionally associated with an ideal garden.
• Kanazawa: Discover the history and craftsmanship of Ohi ware at Ohi Gallery before taking part in a matcha tea experience. Served in authentic Ohi bowls, the tea offers a closer connection to a pottery tradition that has been part of Kanazawa’s tea culture for generations.
• Kyoto: Explore Gion on a walking tour with your Travel Director, through a district known for its preserved wooden machiya townhouses, teahouses and long association with Kyoto’s geisha culture. As you walk its narrow streets, you’ll gain a clearer sense of the traditions and atmosphere that still define this part of the city.
• Kyoto: Visit Fushimi Inari Shrine, where Inari was first enshrined in 711. As you explore the shrine complex, you’ll see how one of Kyoto’s most important sacred sites brings together multiple shrines in a setting that has long been associated with worship, ritual and pilgrimage.
• Kyoto: Walk through Arashiyama Bamboo Forest, where tall bamboo lines the path in one of Kyoto’s most recognizable landscapes. Set in the Saga-Arashiyama district, the grove forms part of an area long associated with temples, river crossings and historic approaches into western Kyoto.
• Kyoto: Visit Kinkaku-ji, first built in 1397 as the retirement villa of Ashikaga Yoshimitsu before becoming a Zen temple. Reflected in the surrounding pond, you'll see one of Kyoto’s most recognized views, while also revealing the legacy of the shogunate in the city.
• Shizuoka: Meet Mr Noboru at his family-run tea farm in Shizuoka, where gyokuro is produced using methods passed down through generations. You’ll learn about the traditional techniques still used here, hear stories from the farm and discover how preparation changes the character of each cup through tasting.
• Seki: Join a private sword forging demonstration with a master swordsmith and his apprentices, where traditional techniques continue to be used to safeguard this important cultural heritage. Then visit the Sword Museum to learn how Seki became one of Japan’s leading sword-making centers, where blades were prized by samurai for their strength and durability. Your visit directly supports United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities.
• Kyoto: Take part in sutra copying at a Japanese temple, hand-copying Buddhist scripture as it has been practised for generations. As each character is written, you’ll follow a tradition rooted in the careful repetition of sacred text.
• Kyoto: Choose a rickshaw ride through Arashiyama with a Local Expert and see this side of Kyoto from a different perspective. As you travel through the district, you’ll pass traditional streets and well-known sights while hearing more about the area’s history and character.
• Choose between two carefully selected activities
• Kyoto: Take part in sutra copying at a Japanese temple, hand-copying Buddhist scripture as it has been practised for generations. As each character is written, you’ll follow a tradition rooted in the careful repetition of sacred text.
• Kyoto: Choose a rickshaw ride through Arashiyama with a Local Expert and see this side of Kyoto from a different perspective. As you travel through the district, you’ll pass traditional streets and well-known sights while hearing more about the area’s history and character.