Kyoto: ten thousand torii and a city that kept its wood

Kyoto was Japan's capital for over a thousand years and it never quite stopped behaving like one. The city keeps 1,600 temples inside a grid laid out on a Chinese model, and the two things you remember are the extremes: **Fushimi Inari**, where thousands of vermilion torii climb the whole of Mount Inari and thin out into an almost empty forest above the tourist stretch, and **Kinkaku-ji**, a gold pavilion doubled in its own pond. Days here divide neatly by district. In *Arashiyama* the bamboo grove creaks in the wind before nine in the morning, and the Hozu river runs past Tenryu-ji's borrowed-landscape garden toward Iwatayama's macaques. Eastern Kyoto is a walk rather than a list: the stone steps of Sannenzaka, the wooden veranda of **Kiyomizu-dera** hanging over the maples, then the Philosopher's Path north along a canal that turns into a tunnel of cherry blossom in early April. After dark the lanterns come on in *Gion* and the machiya of Pontocho open onto the Kamo river, where wooden terraces are built out over the water every summer. Eating is part of the sightseeing. Kaiseki here is a seasonal argument served in ten courses; yudofu — simply simmered tofu — is a temple dish that Nanzen-ji's neighbourhood turned into a speciality; and Nishiki Market, five blocks of covered stalls, sells pickles, tamagoyaki and skewered baby octopus stuffed with quail egg. Autumn is the other great season, when Tofuku-ji's valley of maples turns and the whole city books out. Start early, walk more than you planned, and leave one afternoon completely empty.