Petrel

Famous Landmarks in Japan: 9 Sites Worth Seeing

Ten days on the Golden Route covers the neon sprawl of Tokyo, a thousand years of temples in Kyoto, and Osaka’s street-food swagger, stitched together by trains that run to the minute. See the full itinerary.

From the same hand-researched library as our Japan itinerary. Last reviewed 2026-07-29.

Tokyo

Tokyo is the world’s largest metropolis and its most orderly one, a city where 400-year-old shrines sit under skyscrapers and every neighborhood is its own small world. You come here to see how tradition and the future share a train platform.

1
Senso-ji Temple
Tokyo’s oldest temple (645 AD). Arrive by 9 AM to walk the Nakamise market lane while its painted shutters are still rolling up.
Tokyo
2
Meiji Shrine
A forest of 100,000 donated trees in the middle of the city, honoring the emperor who opened Japan to the world.
Tokyo
3
Shibuya Crossing
Up to 3,000 people cross at once. Watch a cycle from above, then join it.
Tokyo
4
Imperial Palace East Gardens
The old Edo Castle grounds: moats, stone walls, and calm, ten minutes from Tokyo Station. Free.
Tokyo

Kyoto

Kyoto was Japan’s capital for a thousand years and holds seventeen UNESCO World Heritage sites. This is where geisha culture, Zen gardens, and tea ceremony live on as daily life, not museum pieces.

5
Fushimi Inari Shrine
Ten thousand vermilion torii gates climbing a mountainside. The crowds thin dramatically past the halfway point.
Kyoto
6
Kinkaku-ji (Golden Pavilion)
A Zen temple wrapped in gold leaf, floating over its mirror pond exactly as it has since the 14th century (rebuilt 1955).
Kyoto
7
Kiyomizu-dera
The wooden veranda jutting over the hillside gives the classic view over Kyoto’s temple roofs to the city beyond.
Kyoto

Osaka

Osaka is Japan with its tie loosened, the merchant city that answers Kyoto’s restraint with neon, comedy, and the national obsession with eating well cheaply. Its unofficial motto, kuidaore, means "eat yourself broke."

8
Umeda Sky Building
A rooftop "floating garden" observatory 173 meters up, with the city grid running unbroken to the horizon.
Osaka
9
Osaka Castle
The fortress of Hideyoshi, the peasant who unified Japan. The 1931 keep is a reconstruction; the colossal stone walls and moats are the real thing, rebuilt by the Tokugawa in the 1620s.
Osaka

Museums, parks, and neighborhoods are on the full Japan itinerary, sequenced into a realistic day-by-day plan with transport between cities.

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