Nara

The old capital of Japan, famous for temples, free roaming dear, temples with cherry blossoms and temples with fall leaves and a Big Buddha in a temple. You will never want to see another temple as long as you live.
When Japan
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The Good	The Not-So Good
Experience old Japan	Quite tourist focuses
The biggest temples in Japan	Mainly temples

Nara is famous as the oldest capital in Japan and as such boasts a large number of still-standing temples and folk tradition going back centuries. The list of events over the course of one year is quite extensive, with the highlights being the Mount Wakakusa Yamayaki (burn the mountain), which is basically exactly as it name suggests, plus fireworks.

Nara city provides excellent tourist focused sites here and here. You can browse them at your leisure. There is a handy map here, which gives you a good overview of the city and major tourist spots.　According to the locals the top 5 things to do in and around Nara City are the following:-

Feed the deer rice crackers in Nara Park (over 1000 deer)
See the Big Buddha in Tōdai-ji Temple
Eat Naraduke (local style pickles)
Visit Horyuu-ji (map) – it’s not in Nara city itself
Mount Yoshino during cherry blossom season (side trip)

When Japan certainly recommends a trip to Nara while in Japan simply to spend a day or two wandering around the magnificent temples. Be careful however of overdoing it, especially after visiting Kyoto, which is another temple heavy city. Japan has so many temples that you can become a bit worn out after the first ten or so. If you are not a massive architecture geek, or have kids, then plan the temples carefully, and not all in one shot.

Access to and around Nara

Nara city is accessed from Tokyo on the Shinkansen to Kyoto or Osaka. If you are travelling with your JR pass, then changing at Kyoto for the JR Nara line is the best option. You go direct to JR Nara station.

If you are staying around Kyoto or Osaka, then travelling on the Kintetsu private railway to Kintetsu Nara station is a good option due to the special rail passes you can purchase for use on the Kintetsu private railway. A lot of the lines around here are Kintetsu so making use of them will save time. Rail pass information is here.

From Kyoto: You will have to take the Kyoto-Kashihara Line and change at Yamato Saidaiji Station, then get the Namba-Nara line two stops to Kintetsu Nara station. It’s a bit of a trek compared to the JR route, but the final station is closer to the main temples.

From Osaka: You can board at Osaka-Namba Station on the Namba-Nara Line. The JR line from Osaka is the Osaka Loop line and takes around 50 minutes.

The city itself is fairly small and most places can be walked to, although a complete loop of the city on foot might be taxing. There are plenty of buses available. You can buy a local bus pass if you came via the JR line using your JR pass. Riding on the Kintetsu Line using one of their passes will get you free bus rides anyway.