Shūgakuin Imperial Villa was built in the 1650s for the retired emperor Go-Mizunoo on a wooded hillside in the north-eastern foothills, at the bottom of Mount Hiei. Unlike Katsura, which is essentially a small architectural set piece, Shūgakuin is a vast landscape garden — three separate enclosures (Lower, Middle, and Upper) connected by long walks through fields and pine groves that the imperial estate still maintains in something close to their seventeenth-century state.
The high point of the visit is the Upper Garden, where the large Yokuryū-chi artificial lake is held in place by a long dam disguised as a hill, and a small open pavilion (the Rin'un-tei) on the ridge frames one of the great panoramic views in Kyoto — the city laid out across the basin below. The visit is by free Imperial Household Agency tour with passport, takes ninety minutes, and involves a fair amount of walking; wear sensible shoes.