Kyoto has a lot of very interesting and beautiful places to see. This full day tour may not cover all of them but it includes most of the must-see places. Lunch is included which is just ok. Our tour guide for the afternoon tour, Yuki, was very knowledgeable and fluent in English. My only complaint is that we were all in a rush especially the morning tour, and it seemed that we didn't have enough time to take in the beauty of the places we've been to. One family who was part of our tour group was left behind in the Golden Pavilion and had to take the taxi to rejoin the group in the Imperial Palace. The pacing of the afternoon tour was better, we even had time to buy some souvenirs in the shops near the Kyomizu Temple.

Tour guides are almost as important as tour itineraries, and we were very lucky on this tour to have 'Casey' as guide. His commentary on the three wonderful sites we visited was not just informative but enlivened with a gentle humour and the addition of fascinating snippets of historical and contemporary detail.
The organisation of the tour was efficient, and overall it provided an excellent introduction to Kyoto and its treasures and pleasures.

You can learn a lot from a country from it's food and from this point of view, this tour is a window into Japanese culture that would be hard to look through in any other way. The first part ofthe tour in the Nishiki Food Market provided an eye openning expereince to the diversity of Japanese food, not only for the beginner, but for the more experienced foodie. There was plenty of time to check out all of the stalls, and the guide for this part of the tour was extremely knowledgeable and could talk about all of the types of foods in any detail that you would like. Absolutely incredible variety, with plenty of opportunities to taste great food, including extreme food tasting for the adventuresome!

The second part of the tour involved a visit to a saki brewery followed by an introduction to sake with tastings. I wasn't sure waht to expect but was pleasantly surprised. The cooking part of the tour was expertly done and I won't tell you what we cooked and ate as i don't want to spoil it for you, but just to say, that I learned so much and had a great time. There were some in the group who were not so experienced cooks, but there was no pressure and everyone really enjoyed it. A wonderful way to spend an afternoon with insights into Japan that would be otherwise hard to come by.