In a Kyoto machiya, decide the morning first
A day is not built backwards from dinner. It starts with when the light arrives. How we shape a stay in a townhouse.
When we build a machiya stay, we settle the morning before anything else. Itineraries reasoned backwards from dinner tend to leave the morning as whatever is left over.
Hold the hour the light arrives
A room facing the courtyard garden receives its light almost an hour apart depending on the season — half past five in July, half past six in November. Fix breakfast without knowing that difference and you will sleep through the quietest hour of the day.
- Arrival day: deliberately nothing scheduled
- The second morning placed at the best hour of the journey
- Travel after midday, once the light has hardened
Once the morning is set, the evening follows
If you are to sit with the garden at six, you need to be back in the room by nine the night before. Dinner therefore falls at seven. The list of possible restaurants narrows on its own, and the time spent deciding disappears.
An itinerary, we think, is not a tool for adding options. It is a tool for removing them.