Ninna-ji was founded in 888 as an imperial monastery and from that point until the Meiji Restoration its abbot was always a member of the imperial family — usually a former emperor or imperial prince — giving the temple a particular cultural prestige. The complex includes a striking five-storey pagoda, a large kondō (main hall) moved from the imperial palace in the 1620s, and the Omuro Goten — a separate enclosure of palace-style buildings, walking paths and small gardens behind it.
The temple is especially famous for its Omuro-zakura, a grove of late-blooming dwarf cherry trees in the southern half of the precinct. They flower around mid-April, a week or two after most other Kyoto cherries are finished, which makes Ninna-ji a strategic late-season visit for blossom photographers. The complex is one of seventeen sites in Kyoto inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage; even outside cherry season it richly justifies the journey out to the north-western edge of the city.