From Namba station, we took the Kintetsu train to Nara Station. Note that the best is to buy a ticket to Nara. Given the price of the ticket from Osaka - 560 yens (and probably from Kyoto too), this is really not worth using any Pass (JR Pass or Kansai Thru Pass) to go to Nara.
Nara is one of the most famous place in Japan and was Japan's first permanent capital. Nara is a one-day trip (40 min train from Osaka and 45 min train from Kyoto) and you can enjoy a nice & big park filled beautiful shrines and temples including the largest wood-temple in Japan. This is also the place where you can take all the selfies you want with deers.
We followed the Nara-koen walk tour indicated by the Lonely Planet started with the visit of Todai-ji. There, you can see the Daibutsu (Great Buddha) which is one of the largest bronze Buddha images in the world. The grand temple is on the Unesco Heritage List and is also the largest wooden building in the world.
Daibutsu (Great Buddha)
We pursued our walk towards the hill following the stone-paved path. There we visited a few more temples and shrines and could admire the nice view.
You will then find lots of knives shops and restaurants for tourists. We continued our way without stopping and eventually stopped for lunch at a lovely little wooded cabane "Mizuya Chaya". Limited selection of udon or soba noodles (meat or vegetarian) but it was very cheap and absolutely delicious and we could admire the nature from there. I strongly recommend!
After this very nice lunch break, we continued our tour towards Kasuga Taisha (shrine), also on the Unesco World Heritage List. Pathways are lined with hundreds of lanterns, inside and outside the shrine. A wedding cortege was actually arriving at the shrine at the same time that we did. We could assist to the ceremony.
Around this main shrine, you can then find a multitude of smaller shrines.
After this very nice tour across shrines and forest, we headed back to the entrance of the back, always surrounded by plenty of deers. Closer to the station/town, you can also observe some additional temples and pagoda.
Eventually, before joining the Kintetsu Nara Station, we went through the Higashi-muki Arcade where you can find a lot of food and clothing shops. Then, same train than in the morning, we came back to Osaka Namba station.
I highly recommend Nara for a one-day trip. It was very touristy but outside the main temple, you can find a lot of space. Very genuine place.
In our first day in Osaka, we decided to skip the visit to the Osaka castle (Osaka-jo) as we read that it was more impressive from the outside than the inside and it was often very packed inside. However, once back to Osaka after the Nara day-trip, we headed off to the Osaka castle for the sunset and it was a very nice walk around the castle and the castle was indeed quite nice and impressive to see! It was the perfect time to come as all the tourists had left already. We also got the chance to be "caricatured" by one of the local Student (doing a caricature drawing for you for free!). We had a good laugh!
A late cherry tree blossoming!
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