On our last morning in Kyoto, we stopped by Nijo Castle, a beautiful example of Edo period architecture from the 1600s. It’s so dramatically different from European castles from the same era, it was incredible to see the beauty and effort they’d put in to every last detail of the architecture.

Inside the castle, we spent the most time exploring the gardens and our last fill of cherry blossoms. Hundreds of people were busy doing the same – one Japanese couple we saw took a solid 30 minutes of photos of the blossoms, posing this way and that, getting a closeup of the flowers until they were finally happy.

Once we’d had our fill of ancient castles, we bundled back toward Kyoto Station to catch our shinkansen for home!