Originally Posted by
cbentley21
My reasoning for the early departure is that i don't have much time to explore Kyoto and i wanted to get as much out of the first day there as possible. I was planning on arriving early the first day, checking in at hotel, and then jetting off to see either Nijo or Arashiyama; or both if possible. Is this too ambitous?
You should be able to do both in one day, but you should start earlier as suggested here. Nijo shouldn't take that long (a couple of hours at most) but Arashiyama can take you days if you are into it, and you can easily spend many hours. Go to Nijo first, do the tour, etc. and then head out to Arashiyama, have lunch, and spend the rest of the day there.