Japan – Kyoto

Overview

Kyoto, as the French claim, owes a lot to France; it is thanks to the insistence of the French orientalist Serge Elisef, whose arguments finally made the Truman administration relent, that Kyoto was spared from the Second World War bombing.

That way he saved the imperial city that the emperor Kanmou founded in 795. Kyoto will then be the center of an artistic and cultural wealth never experienced before. Surrounded by forests of bamboo and red pines, the old capital which is not only an artistic but also a religious sanctuary, still offers the people of the world its 1.600 buddhist temples and 250 holy Shinto shrines.

It also offers elaborate wooden lacquers, magnificent decorative ceramics and paintings and literature masterpieces. Kyoto is truly unique, however it still remains an incompehensible enigma.

When someone reaches Kyoto by train he gets so impressed by the station's futuristic style and the aerodynamics of the architecture of this city that everyone identifies as the most traditional of Japan. Steel, escalators and patios leave you speechless...

So quite rightly everyone wonders where is the imperial Kyoto mentioned since 1970 by the japanese author Yuko Misima? The beauty of Kyoto does not appear in the first glance, which I was told about, so I had to go on and search more to discover all the hidden treasures of this place...