Hirota Guest House

Among historic lodgings, few offer as authentic an experience of traditional city life as the Hirota Guest House. Run by the spry Hiromi Hirota, the machiya has been in the family for five generations and was once a sake factory. Visitors sleep upstairs in the main building or slip through the back garden to the kura storehouse, which is now an atmospheric private cottage. Make sure that you get some travel tips from Ms. Hirota, a former interpreter who will point you to some of Kyoto’s most intriguing sites.