Nara for someone who had it down as a half-day trip

Nara appears on almost every Kansai itinerary in the same format: half a day from Kyoto or Osaka, a forty-minute train, deer, a couple of large buildings and back for dinner. It is a defensible decision on a short trip, and it is the source of the commonest impression among those who return: that Nara is fine but you see it in no time.

01 Why half a day is not enough

The problem with the half-day trip is not its length but its time slot. Everyone doing it arrives between ten and eleven and leaves between three and four, because that is what the return train allows. The result is that the park concentrates everybody into exactly the same five hours.

Added to that is a problem of scale that hardly anyone gauges. The prefecture covers 3,691 square kilometres, of which only 23% is habitable and the rest is mountain. The standard circuit covers a few square kilometres on the edge of the northern basin.

What does Nara gain by going from half a day to two nights?

The park without the crush Day visitors arrive at ten and leave at four: outside that window it is empty

Access to the southern mountains A long hour from the city, into a landscape nothing like the park

Accommodation price Considerably cheaper than sleeping in central Kyoto, on the same rail network

Usefulness as a Kansai base Kyoto, Osaka and Nara itself are all under an hour away by train

Nightlife and late dining It closes early: a quiet city, not a night destination

Reaching the south without a car Possible by train and bus, but it requires planning timetables in advance

02 The park at seven in the morning

The first gain from sleeping here is purely arithmetical. The park does not close: it is an open space and the deer are loose twenty-four hours a day. Anyone staying in the city can walk out at seven in the morning and find exactly the same place with nobody in it.

A group of a dozen deer, lying and standing, on a pale open area at the top of a hill, with dense forest closing the background. — The animals on the hill above the city, away from the five-hour circuit. There are no cracker stalls and no queues here.Christophe95 / CC BY-SA 4.0·CC BY-SA 4.0

The second gain is the evening. From half past four, when the return trains leave, the city empties all at once and what remains is a local population of under four hundred thousand in a quiet town. That contrast, within a single day, is one of the hardest things to obtain in Kansai.

You do not need to go somewhere else to escape the crowd. It is enough to be in the same place at a different hour.

03 The south, which almost nobody does

The second night is for what a day trip does not allow at all: heading south through the prefecture. In a long hour by train or car you go from urban plain to the Kii Mountains, which occupy around 60% of the territory.

A valley seen from a hillside, with a town stepped among woodland and large dark roofs, cherry blossom in the foreground and layered mountains behind. — A hillside town in the south of the prefecture. It is a long hour from the city, and practically no day visitor gets this far.KimonBerlin / CC BY-SA 2.0·CC BY-SA 2.0

The change of landscape is total. Between 3,000 and 5,000 millimetres of rain fall there each year, among the highest figures in Japan, and the result is permanent wet forest, deep ravines and moss-covered rock. It resembles the deer park in nothing, and it is in the same prefecture.

04 Nara as a Kansai base

There is an additional argument that usually convinces the undecided: the city works very well as a base for the whole region. Kyoto and Osaka are under an hour away by train, and accommodation is considerably cheaper than in central Kyoto.

A long panorama of a rounded grassy hill behind a continuous mass of woodland, with large dark roofs showing among the trees. — The edge of the city: woodland, roofs and the hill behind. Everything is within walking distance of the centre, which makes a car unnecessary here.Degueulasse / CC BY 3.0·CC BY 3.0

The cost of that choice should be stated plainly: here you dine early and things finish early. If your idea of a good evening on a trip involves going out at ten, this is not your base and Osaka is. If your idea involves getting up at half past six, it is the other way round.

05 What to know beforehand

The first warning is about dates. November is the best month, with highs of 16.8 degrees and only 71.2 millimetres of rain, and April and May are the spring window. Avoid June and July, in the middle of the rainy season, and August, which reaches 33 degrees with high humidity.

The second concerns the deer, and it is about safety. They are free-roaming wild animals, and there are two delicate periods: mothers with fawns in June and July, and males in rut in autumn, with October and November the months with most incidents. Keep your distance and do not keep food in your pocket.

The third is about the south. You can get there by train and bus, but services are infrequent and it pays to check timetables the day before. If there are two of you and you can hire a car for that day, the south opens up considerably.

06 How the trip ends up

With two nights the split is simple. Arrive in the afternoon, as the day visitors are leaving, and give the first evening to the already-empty park. Next day, get up early to see it again in different light and use the rest of the day for the south. On the third morning, before the train, go out early once more.

If you can only add one night instead of two, keep the first evening and the following morning and give up the south. It is still worth it: the difference between seeing the park at midday and seeing it at dawn is greater than the difference between seeing it and not seeing it.

And one practical recommendation for the train back: buy a box of persimmon-leaf sushi, the local speciality, before boarding. It was designed for precisely that, for travelling, and it is the most fitting way to end a trip through a prefecture without a sea.