Nishi Hongan-ji

The gates open at 5:30, nobody asks for a ticket, and at 6:00 the morning service starts in the Amida-do with whoever has turned up. Nishi Hongan-ji is the head temple of the Hongwanji branch of Jodo Shinshu, one of the largest Buddhist schools in Japan, and it still feels like a working headquarters rather than a sight: people come to pray, to hear sermons, to arrange funerals.

The temple grew from the mausoleum that Shinran's followers built for him in eastern Kyoto in 1272. After a century of wars and moves it came to this site in 1591, when Toyotomi Hideyoshi was replanning the city. A succession dispute split it soon after: in 1602 Tokugawa Ieyasu gave land to the elder son, Kyonyo, whose line built Higashi Hongan-ji a few blocks east. Kyoto people still call the two O-nishi-san and O-higashi-san.

The two main halls are joined by a covered corridor, and you take your shoes off and walk straight in. The Goei-do, rebuilt in 1636 and restored in 2009, is 62 metres wide and 29 metres high and holds a wooden statue of Shinran; the Amida-do beside it dates from 1760. Both are National Treasures, and their plain gold and tatami interiors are huge and calm. In front of the Goei-do grows a ginkgo about 400 years old, called the upside-down ginkgo because its spread branches look like roots. On the south side of the grounds, the Kara-mon gate is carved so densely that it is nicknamed Higurashi-mon, the gate you could look at until dusk.

The downside is what you cannot see. The Hiunkaku pavilion, the Shoin reception rooms and the North Noh Stage, the oldest surviving one, are all National Treasures and are usually closed to the public. Hongan-ji, under that formal name, is one of the 17 parts of the Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto, inscribed in 1994. Monks lead free 30-minute walks round the grounds four times a day with no booking; they are listed on the temple's Japanese pages, so expect Japanese. Give it an hour, and pair it with Higashi Hongan-ji on the walk back to the station.