With small children, Umekoji Park is the easiest day in Kyoto. Kyoto Aquarium and the Kyoto Railway Museum sit inside the same park, within walking distance of Kyoto Station. Unlike the temples, there is nothing here you have to carry a stroller up.
Decide two things first: the day, and not driving
The Kyoto Railway Museum closes on Wednesdays (it opens on public holidays and during school holidays — so the days a visiting family is most likely to come, it is usually open). Kyoto Aquarium is open all year, but its opening and closing times change from day to day — check the calendar on the official site before you set out.
And the museum has no car park. The official site asks visitors not to come by car. The exception is the “omoiyari” parking in Umekoji Park, which is for families with infants, disabled visitors, older visitors and expectant mothers.
Kyoto Aquarium — the best-equipped of the two
It recreates the rivers and sea of Kyoto, and includes a “satoyama” area with a working rice paddy indoors.
The facilities here are the strongest in this guide: three nursing rooms (with hot water for formula), eight nappy-changing tables, four multipurpose toilets, and ten toilets with a child-sized seat plus four urinals sized for small boys. Strollers roll straight in, with ramps and lifts between floors.
One catch: there are no strollers to borrow. If you want to push one inside, bring your own from where you are staying.
Tickets: ¥2,600 adults, ¥2,000 high school, ¥1,400 elementary and junior high, ¥900 for ages 3 and up.
Kyoto Railway Museum — a steam locomotive runs every day
One of the few museums in Japan that runs a steam locomotive daily. Open 10:00–17:00 (last entry 16:30).
It is well equipped too: four nursing rooms, nappy-changing tables, nine multipurpose toilets, a lift, English signage — and strollers you can borrow (the aquarium has none, so if you are choosing an order, this one is easier to leave until later). Eating is allowed in designated places only. Indoor and outdoor areas are mixed, so in rain start with the indoor half.
Tickets: ¥1,500 general, ¥1,300 university and high school, ¥500 elementary and junior high, ¥200 for ages 3 and up. The price list starts at age three; the official pages say nothing about under-threes.
How to order the day
Aquarium in the morning (check the opening time the night before), lunch in the park, museum in the afternoon. Since the aquarium needs your own stroller, decide in advance whether you bring one or leave the pushing until the museum, and you will carry less.
Rain does not break this day. Both buildings are indoors; only the walk across the park is outside.
What is not nearby
Elsewhere in Kyoto, Fushimi Inari Taisha is a whole mountain of shrine grounds with many steps, and the official pages list no nursing room or changing table (the JR Inari station right at the main approach has a baby bed in the toilet inside the ticket gates). The Arashiyama bamboo path is a public road — no toilets, no nursing rooms on the path itself. Both are worth going to; just plan them as days when you are not counting on facilities.
