Kiyomizu-dera

After Fushimi Inari I headed across Kyoto to visit Kiyomizu‑dera, another of the city’s most famous temples, and even in the drizzle the wooden verandas and the view over the green hillside were packed with tourists and school groups.

Kiyomizu‑dera, whose name means “Temple of Pure Water,” is a historic Buddhist temple founded in 780 on the slopes of Mount Otowa and is now part of Kyoto’s UNESCO World Heritage sites. The temple is best known for its great wooden stage that juts 13 meters out from the main hall without using a single nail, supported by a forest of pillars so visitors can stand above the trees and look out over the city skyline, just like in your photos of the broad, wet terrace and the sea of green below. Beneath this hall lies the Otowa Waterfall, whose pure spring gave the temple its name; its three separate streams are said to grant blessings such as long life, academic success, and good relationships to those who carefully drink from them with long-handled cups.

The complex you captured also includes bright vermilion gates, smaller halls, moss‑covered stone lanterns, and distant pagodas tucked into the forested hillside, all linked by stone paths that glisten in the rain. Kiyomizu‑dera is so iconic that in Japanese there is a saying “to jump off the stage at Kiyomizu,” meaning to take a bold plunge into something new, a nod to the dramatic height of the veranda that now serves as one of Kyoto’s most photographed viewpoints.