写真集CRP 京都寸景photo by TERUYO FUKUMOTO KYOTO NOV.2021

京都は美しい。 “お客さん、運がいいねえ、今年の京都の紅葉は近年稀に見る美しさですよ”　と乗り合わせたどのタクシー運転手さんも口をそろえて言っていた。 今年１１月二泊三日で京都に行った。好天気に恵まれ滞在中昼も夜も行く先々で見事な紅葉を写真に撮れて超々ラッキー。 京都は東京と比べると紅葉（もみじ）が多く、朝日に映えるもみじ、昼下がりに輝くもみじ、ライトアップされキラキラ光るもみじと早朝から夜まで紅葉を満喫。 保津川下りにも初挑戦。大木をくり抜いて作った古い船に３人の船頭さんが岩だらけの川幅のせまい急流をものともせず下る。２時間前後の川下りにライフジャケット着用もうなずける。 ラッキーが重なり、御所の真正面の道をへだてた、江戸時代に建てられ、釘一本使わず元通りに改装された、個人所有の町屋に宿泊。かっての住人は御所をながめ、お茶をたて、絵を書き、俳句や和歌を読み、優雅な日々を送っていたに違いない。

Views of Kyoto
Kyoto is indeed beautiful. “You’re certainly in luck—the autumn colors this year are more spectacular than any year in recent memory!” So said every taxi driver I encountered during my stay in this old city. I traveled to Kyoto for three days and two nights this past November. Throughout, the weather was superb and I was lucky enough to be able to take so many photos of the autumn foliage everywhere I went, day and night. Kyoto has more maples than Tokyo, making for more scenic autumnal vistas, and you can enjoy them from early in the morning to late at night: maple leaves reflected in the morning sun, maple leaves shining in the late afternoon, and maple leaves lit up and glittering in the evening. It was also my first time to go down the Hozu River, not far from the city. Three boatmen in an old-fashioned boat carved out of a large tree carried us down the narrow, rocky rapids—it was no wonder that we wore life jackets for the two-hour boat ride! By a stroke of good fortune, I stayed in a privately owned townhouse across the street from the Imperial Palace, built in the Edo period (1603-1867) and renovated to its original state without using a single nail. I imagine the former residents must have spent their days looking out on the palace, making tea, painting pictures, and reading haiku and waka poems.