Imperial Palaces & the Japanese Alps

Watch as the Japanese capital’s skyscrapers loom large on the horizon as your private transfer brings you to your ultra-luxury hotel. Here, designer chic and moat-side dining rival the elegance of its esteemed overlook – the Imperial Palace itself. During your stay in Tokyo, you’ll have use of an IC Pass, to take advantage of the world-famous public transport, along with the services of a private guide.

Your local expert will tailor a tour to your tastes, whether it’s locals-only sushi counters, Meiji-era park shrines or Shinjuku’s technicolour commotion.

Spend this morning in the company of an expert guide as you gain a fascinating insight into the world of sumo with a morning tour to one of the city's premier 'stables'. Learn about the sport itself, and also the strict spectator etiquette that surrounds it. It's all brought to life as you watch a 90-minute training session – a unique and unforgettable experience. Spend the rest of the day exploring Tokyo at your own pace.

Bookend your train trip to Hakone with private transfers, arriving at your ryokan accommodation. Here, rooms feature open-air baths, tatami mats and views out across the river and lush woodland beyond, while its onsen is fed by a hot spring founded by a monk in 1605. Guests are also treated to traditional kaiseki dining, where multiple courses balance delicate flavours and textures.

You’ll have to remind yourself to head out and explore Hakone’s national park, where waterside shrines and shimmering forest-ringed lakes are the foreground to the iconic Mt. Fuji.

Stay: Yama-no Chaya

Your first bullet train trip will shoot you down Japan’s eastern seaboard to Kyoto. This ancient city showcases the very origins of Japanese culture across dozens of UNESCO-listed sites, hundreds of Shinto shrines and thousands of Buddhist temples. Staying on the banks of the Kamogawa River, panoramic windows invite in views of the city – helping you pick out the sites you want to visit on your tailor-made tour.

There’s everything from palatial gardens to endless tunnels of torii gates. We’ve also included a separate trip to an exclusive teahouse in the city’s geisha district, Gion. Here, a maiko apprentice will induct you into this secretive world with a traditional tea ceremony and all its performance accompaniments.

Your next Shinkansen bullet will then shuttle you to Hiroshima where a private guide will again tailor a tour to your interests. Memorialise the city’s haunted past in the ribcage ruins of the Peace Park and Museum before turning to its buoyant present in its teahouse-dotted gardens and its restored castle, curving skywards in timber tiers. Your guide will then bring you on a ferry trip to Miyajima – ‘Shrine Island’. Passing its famous floating torii gate, you’ll arrive at Itsukushima – a vermillion-red shrine that perches serenely on the water itself.

Having checked into your delightful ryokan accommodation, complete with rooftop onsen and further included kaiseki-dinners, you’ll have the next day free to explore. Coastal cycle paths bring you to white-sand beaches while cable car rides and hikes take you past hillside temples to stunning panoramas.

Stay: Itsukushima Iroha, or similar

Successive train rides will see you skirt Lake Biwa to arrive at Kanazawa – perhaps the best preserved of Japan’s historic cities. Here, the walled residences of the samurai quarter, the timber teahouses of the geisha district and such still-practised crafts as gold leaf work, lacquerware and dyeing recall all the romance of feudal Japan. Contrast it all with your luxuries of your ultra-modern hotel before enjoying a day to explore at your own pace. Highlights include Kenrokuen, ranked among Japan’s Three Great Gardens – its glassy carp-filled ponds spanned by curved bridges and ringed by cherry trees and and intricate stone lanterns.

Stay: Hyatt Centric Kanazawa

Tucked away among a mountainous valley is a UNESCO-listed village formed of 250-year-old farmhouses – Shirakawago. These traditional gassho buildings are built as hands in prayer with their thatched roofs rising into a steep apex. It makes for a truly evocative visit before you continue on, via a private transfer, to Takayama. Framed by the majestic Hida Mountains of the Japanese Alps, the narrow streets of this 16th-century castle town are lined with latticed merchant houses, Edo-period teahouses and stunning Buddhist temples.

Return after each day at leisure to your luxurious ryokan inn to be welcomed by your kimono-wearing host, private outdoors hot-spring bath and, yes, kaiseki dining. 

Your scenic train trip back to the Japanese capital will be sandwiched between two private transfers, bringing you to your luxury hotel. Spend some time relaxing before heading home, or head out for one last evening of exploration, perhaps taking the chance for some last-minute shopping or to immerse yourself in the city’s neon nightlife or even Golden Gai’s evocative labyrinth of back-alley sake bars and ramen joints.

Savour a final breakfast this morning before your journey draws to a close.