Grand Tour of Indonesia - Java & Bali 2026-27

By train from Jakarta to Yogyakarta, one of the most beautiful railway journeys in the world.

The island of Java is one of the many wonders scattered among the countless islands that make up Indonesia. It is also home to Jakarta, the capital of the whole country – a city that is, truth be told, not particularly attractive when compared with all the beauty of the rest of the island. Java is dotted with active and extremely dangerous volcanoes, some of them submerged off its coasts, which unfortunately often reawaken, causing eruptions or deadly tsunamis. Yet despite this subterranean fire, the island of Java is a spectacle that perfectly combines architectural treasures considered among the most beautiful in the world, such as the Hindu site of Prambanan or the Buddhist site of Borobudur, with a green, luxuriant natural landscape of rice paddies, mountains and rivers rushing through the countryside where much of the population works hard producing rice, coffee and tea of the very finest quality. The best way to watch this postcard landscape slowly unfold and to observe island life passing by, as if seated in a cinema, is to travel by train. The railway line that winds between the cities of Jakarta and Yogyakarta is one of the most beautiful rail routes there is.

Pura Tanah Lot: the temple of temples

Pura Tanah Lot, on the west coast of Bali, is probably the most famous and most photographed temple on the island and is dedicated to the god of the sea. Tanah Lot means land (Tanah) and sea (Lot), a most fitting name given its spectacular position on top of an imposing rock overlooking the sea. The myths and legends attached to this sacred place are almost as fascinating as the temple itself. After the holy priest Danghyang Nirarta spent a night here, the people of Bali decided to build the temple of Tanah Lot on this spot. It is said that there was once a bridge linking the temple to the mainland, which was destroyed by the raging sea. Another interesting curiosity is that beneath Tanah Lot there is a cave with a magical spring: curiously, the water of the spring is fresh, even though the temple is surrounded by the salt water of the ocean.

Jakarta, the capital destined to become a former capital with the construction of the new one.

It stands on the island of Java, which, despite its modest size, has always been the heart of Indonesia: more than 50 per cent of the country’s population lives here, more than 50 per cent of Indonesia’s GDP is produced here, and six of the seven presidents since independence have been Javanese. Jakarta will remain Indonesia’s economic and financial heart, but the country’s identity will surely be transformed by the construction of the new capital. Far from postcard landscapes, Jakarta is the ideal destination for travellers in search of the real Indonesia. It is at the foot of its ultra-modern skyscrapers, along its avenues busy night and day, in its lively Chinatown and among the dense network of canals that crosses it that you can grasp the authentic soul of the country, its hopes and its obsessions. To the connoisseur who walks its streets with patience, Indonesian Jakarta will reveal excellent museums and many reminders of its colonial past, as well as the many faces of a country in transition. This metropolis of almost ten million inhabitants, which began as a Hindu centre, then Muslim, and later the headquarters of the Dutch East India Company, has over time absorbed a number of villages to reach its present vast extent. Today it is divided into five districts: Central, South, North, West and East Jakarta, each with a different character. Jakarta Pusat, the centre, houses the government buildings. Two different presidents sought to leave their mark, as witnessed by the Monas, the great tower commissioned by the first head of state, Soekarno, to celebrate the winning of independence. To the west lies Jakarta Barat, home to Chinatown and part of the old Dutch city, including the Stadhuis, the seat of the East India Company, now converted into a museum. Other historic buildings lie in the northern part of the city, Jakarta Utara, with its seaside suburb of Ancol. For shopping, a stop in Jakarta Selatan, in the south of the city, with its modern shopping centres, is a must.

The rice paddies and the Subak irrigation system, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In Indonesia, rice is not only the staple of the population’s diet but also a central element in social and religious ceremonies. The complex organisation required to grow this crop has for centuries been an important factor of cohesion in community life and expresses a strong sense of identity in social and religious terms – so much so that in 2012 it was recognised as a Cultural Landscape and thus a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Bali’s volcanic terrain has given the island extremely fertile soil, ideal for cultivation. The island also has four mountain lakes and no fewer than 150 rivers, whose waters, skilfully regulated by man in a complex hydraulic system, have ensured adequate irrigation for the rice crops. This system is called Subak and is a traditional method of irrigating rice paddies that has been practised for more than 10 centuries. It is based on a network of canals, dams, bamboo pipes and tunnels, and also involves an artificial terracing of the land, at the centre of which stands a temple for the storage and the democratic, cooperative management of the water. These temples are also the place where the farmers meet their elected leaders and take democratic decisions on the irrigation schedule. Subak arose as an expression of the Tri Hita Karana philosophy, the source of the traditional values of Balinese culture, which rests on the awareness that human beings must always maintain a harmonious relationship between man and God, between man and other people, and between man and nature. The congregations of the water temples, in which all the farmers take part, aim to sustain a harmonious relationship with the natural and spiritual world through the sustainable management of resources and a series of rituals, offerings and artistic performances.

Although Bali’s social structure has changed considerably in recent decades, the collective responsibility rooted in the tradition of rice cultivation continues to dictate the moral code of daily life, even in urban centres.