Nara, the capital of Nara prefecture, is a small city with 360.000 inhabitants about one hour south of Kyoto. Today, it is a rather typical Japanese city, but some 1300 years ago, from 710 – 794, Nara was the capital of Japan before the imperial court moved to Kyoto. But in this period of only 84 years – called the Nara period – a truly impressive palace was built: Heijo-kyu.

The Heijo palace was built in accordance with Chinese customs: Since the emperor was seen as the head of state, the palace must lie on the head of the capital city, which means, on the northern end. The rest of the city was placed on a strict grid layout. The main north-south road, called Suzaku dori, an enormous boulevard of 75 m width, led from the southern city gate called Rajo mon up to the palace’s main gate Suzaku mon. And the main east-west road – smaller, but still 37 m wide Nijo-oji – also passed in front of Suzaku mon.

This Suzaku gate is a truly impressive building. 25 m wide, 10 deep and 22 m high in two storeys, it was bigger than any other gate of the palace. With its vermillion pillars, white walls and black roof tiles it reminds one of similar buildings in Korea.

It also looks like a smaller version of the Former Imperial Audience Hall, which is situated exactly north of the gate, in an enormous courtyard, where the imperial courtiers had to assemble for official ceremonies like New Year’s celebrations or coronations. The most interesting thing about the Imperial Audience Hall, besides the fact that it is the largest building of Heijo palace with 44 m width, 20 m depth, and 27 m height, is that it has no doors to the south – the lower part of the building is completely open. That means that the emperor could gaze without hindrance over the whole palace and assembled courtiers from his throne in the center of the hall. (In the reconstructed building, glass sliding doors have been installed in the southern wall).

This whole compound from the early Nara period from Suzaku gate to the Imperial Audience Hall was enclosed in a cloister – a covered walkway with an earthen wall in the middle (and strategically placed gates).

In 745, a new audience hall was built a bit south-east of the old one. North of this Latter Imperial Audience Hall, and east of the former one, lay the Imperial Domicile. On this site, an enormous well was found, lined with Japanese cypress – a hollowed trunk of 1.7 m diameter. Apparently, this well was meant for the exclusive use of the imperial family.

Nearby were the Ministry of the Imperial Household, the Office of Rice Wine and Vinegars (with another impressively sized well) and a number of other government offices. Those were much more modest buildings with wooden roofs and simple interiors. Interestingly, the smaller government officials – those who had to do all the mundane tasks – at that time sat on chairs and desks as we know them today (probably another import from China) and they wrote on little wooden slats, the top layer of which could be sliced off repeatedly in an early form of recycling.

Actually, recycling seems to have been quite en vogue in that early period. Some of the lower government buildings have been rebuilt six times, probably not for repairs, but for other, hitherto unknown reasons. When the court moved on to Kyoto in 794, some of the buildings were relocated (foremost the Former Imperial Audience Hall). The same probably happened to buildings of lesser value, and some of the building materials may have been used elsewhere. The buildings that were left when Nara was abandoned as capital, either burnt down or simply fell into disrepair and disappeared over time. The land was reused for agriculture and the fact that once there was an Imperial Palace was (partly) forgotten.

This is the reason why, when you visit Heijo palace today, the most striking aspect of the palace site is the sheer size of it: Once it covered an area of 1 square kilometer, and today it is nothing but a large open field. The current Imperial Palaces in Kyoto and Tokyo may be equally large, but because of all the buildings and trees on the grounds, one doesn’t notice that. In Nara, only from 1959 research, investigation, and excavation on the Heijo Palace grounds have been carried on continuously. The site of the Latter Imperial Audience Hall was only rediscovered in 1974 and reconstruction of some buildings began in 1989. Most remarkable, the Suzaku southern gate and the Former Imperial Audience Hall have been rebuilt in great detail, partly with methods employed in the Nara period itself. Some of the original building materials can be admired in the museums on site.

However, whatever building you see at the Heijo palace site is merely an educated guess. There are no historical paintings from that time, and scholars had to piece together information from excavations on the site, from temples built in the same period, or from descriptions of the few historical documents that do exist of or refer to that time period.

All in all, if you don’t mind walking around, Heijo Palace is worth a visit. The sheer vastness of (empty) space is impressive, and museums and excavations, even though far apart, are very interesting – and often even come with English translation. And photography is allowed pretty much everywhere, if you turn off your flash.

Uji is a small city between Kyoto and Nara with about 185.000 inhabitants. It lies on the Uji river, an important waterway of olden times, which one can travel up until Lake Biwa. The first settlement in Uji was established in the 4th century, and in the 7th century the first bridge across the river was built.

The town, with its mountains coming up to the river, was a popular destination for outings of the nobility that lived in Kyoto and served in the palace there. The last ten chapters of the most famous Japanese novel – the Genji Monogatari, which was written around 1000 CE – take place in Uji. Some people claim it was even written there when Murasaki Shikibu retreated to a monastery for a while, but then others dispute her having written those chapters altogether. There are at least two statues of Murasaki near the river, and a museum devoted entirely to the Genji Monogatari.The most famous attraction of Uji, however, is Byodo-in temple. It was originally a villa, built in 998 by a high-ranking court official, but only some 50 years later it was turned into a Buddhist temple by his son. The main hall or Phoenix hall, is supposed to resemble the palace in the Land of Happiness. It is a bit hard to see in the photo below, but the building is essentially a T-shaped structure, where the left and right parts of the horizontal stroke represent the wings, and the vertical stroke the tail of a phoenix. Where the two strokes meet, the head of the bird is supposed to be, and there is placed a large statue of Amida Buddha.Byodo-in was designated as UNESCO World Heritage in 1994, and an image of it is prominently featured on the 10 YEN coin. One of the phoenixes on the roof – national treasures, by the way – is depicted on the 10.000 YEN bill of Japan. There is a large museum in Byodo-in showing Buddhist art that was made for and used in the temple. Even if you don’t buy the extra ticked to get you into the main hall, you can still get a feeling for how it would look inside.On crossing the river, there are the two main shrines of Uji, the Uji shrine at the bank of the river, and the Ujigami shrine a bit up the hill. Until the Meiji restoration, they were a unit, but now they are separate entities; and in 1994, Ujigami shrine was also registered as UNESCO World Heritage.

Both the prayer hall of the shrine – the image right below – as well as the main hall are Japanese national treasures. Ujigami shrine, built around 1060 as a guardian shrine to Byodo-in temple, is the oldest original shinto shrine in Japan, quite a feat in a country where many so-called ancient buildings have burnt down and were rebuilt several times.

Another thing Uji is famous for its green tea. It is one of the first places of Japan where matcha green tea was cultivated, and from the 12th century until today, the quality is excellent. On the road from Uji station to Byodo-in temple, there are numerous shops that sell anything tea related, be it ever so vaguely: matcha chocolate and cookies, matcha Baumkuchen and soba,… but also utensils for Japanese tea ceremony, and cups and beakers. There are numerous different types of green tea, of course, from the cheap daily varieties to the expensive ones served only at tea ceremonies on special occasions. But, this is a topic for another time…