Naramachi

A look around

What you’ll be living next to. Swipe through.

1/4

Where it sits

The circle is Naramachi and roughly a 10-minute walk around it.

How far is everything?

From the middle of this area to the city's headline sights — pick your own on the city page and these become your list.

• Kofuku-ji & the five-story pagoda7 min walk618 m
• Nara National Museum11 min walk899 m
• Isuien Garden15 min walk1.3 km
• Nara Park & the deer18 min walk1.5 km
• Todai-ji & the Great Buddha19 min walk1.6 km
• Kasuga Taisha22 min walk1.8 km
• Nigatsu-do Hall23 min walk1.9 km
• Mount Wakakusa28 min walk2.3 km

On your doorstep

What you’re living next to if you stay here.

• 5.Naramachi old town — A grid of narrow lanes lined with dark-timber merchant houses, now craft shops, tearooms and tiny museums — the everyday, human-scale Nara behind the monuments. Lovely for an aimless wander and a matcha stop.
• 11.Gango-ji — A World Heritage temple hidden in Naramachi, one of Japan's oldest, with a roof still tiled in 1,300-year-old ceramics brought from the first capital. Small, ancient and deeply peaceful; the seed the whole old town grew around.
• 14.Nakatanidou mochi pounding — The famous shop where staff pound mugwort mochi at astonishing speed to a gathering crowd — grab one warm and soft, dusted in sweet soy flour, straight off the mallet. A tasty, free bit of street theatre.
• 15.Nara flavours — kakinoha-zushi & sake — Nara is the birthplace of Japanese sake and of kakinoha-zushi, sushi wrapped in persimmon leaves — try both in Naramachi, with kudzu sweets and Nara-zuke pickles. A gentle, distinctive taste of the old capital.