Nara — Sights
A 1,300-year-old capital where the deer bow first.
- Nara Park & the Deer — Hold up a pack of crackers and the deer queue up to bow
- Todai-ji (Great Buddha Hall) — A 15-metre bronze Buddha inside a colossal wooden hall
- Kasuga Taisha — A mossy lantern-lined path ending at vermilion corridors
- Kofuku-ji — Home of the Ashura statue; the pagoda is under wraps until 2031
- Isuien Garden — A garden that borrows Todai-ji's gate roof as scenery
- Yoshikien Garden — Moss, pond and tea gardens in one, free to enter
- Naramachi — Lattice-front townhouses and red monkey charms
- Higashimuki Shopping Street — A covered arcade starting at the station exit
- Mt Wakakusa — A bare grassy hill with the whole city below
- Nara National Museum — Buddhist statues in a Meiji-era Western-style hall
- Horyu-ji — Home to the world's oldest surviving wooden buildings
- Yakushi-ji & Toshodai-ji (Nishinokyo) — Twin pagodas and Ganjin's temple on one short walk
- Heijo Palace Site — An 8th-century palace field with a vermilion throne hall
- Mt Yoshino — A ridge-top temple village, famous for cherry blossom
- Nigatsu-do (Todai-ji) — Sunset over the Daibutsuden roof from a wooden veranda
- Sarusawa Pond — The five-storey pagoda stands upside down
- Shin-Yakushi-ji — Twelve clay guardians stand in a ring
- Gango-ji — Roof tiles carried over from Asuka still sit on top
- Kasugayama Primeval Forest — A cedar forest walk without the deer crowds
- Naramachi Koshi-no-Ie — A merchant house you can enter for free
- Kasuga Taisha Manyo Botanical Garden — Walk the plants of the Manyoshu poems, label by label
- Tamukeyama Hachimangu — Right beside Todai-ji, yet almost no crowds
- Hokke-ji — A nunnery temple holding an 11-faced Kannon
- Nara Prefectural Complex Roof Garden — A rooftop look over Nara Park and the pagodas
- Hase-dera — A 399-step covered stair ending at a giant Kannon