Yogyakarta

The cultural heart of Java is a sultanate city of batik studios, shadow-puppet theatre, the kraton (royal palace), and the small streets of Kotagede. It’s also the most common base for visiting Borobudur and Prambanan, and an attraction in its own right. Malioboro Street is the main shopping spine; Tugu rail station is the architectural landmark; and Mount Merapi, the active volcano on the city’s northern horizon, can be climbed before dawn for the standard sunrise summit photograph.

Smoking volcanic cone of Mount Bromo rising from a vast sea of sand caldera at dawn, thin sulfur plume drifting against a soft pink sky, distant Mount Semeru erupting on the horizon — Mount Bromo at dawn, East Java.

Otherworldly electric-blue flames of burning sulfur on the dark crater floor of Kawah Ijen at night in East Java, sulfur miners with headlamps, faint stars overhead — Kawah Ijen blue-fire crater, East Java.

← Back to Indonesia · All Destinations