Three classic areas, plus a food tour.

About 400 metres, with bamboo filling both sides of the path. This is where the tour goes first. By midday it is full of people. In the morning it is still quiet. When the wind passes, the leaves sound all at once above your head.

In the Heian period, nobles built their second homes around here.

This was the first garden in Japan to be named a Special Place of Scenic Beauty. It keeps the form a Zen monk gave it about 700 years ago. The pond is designed to hold the reflection of Mount Arashiyama and Mount Kameyama behind it.

The mountain behind the garden does not belong to the temple. It is borrowed, and made part of the view.

The bridge is named after the moon. More than 700 years ago a retired emperor watched the moon from this bridge and said it looked like the moon crossing over. The bridge is 155 metres long, and the present one dates from 1934.

The view is the mountain behind, not the bridge. Cherry blossom in spring, red leaves in autumn: the whole mountain changes colour.

In a Japanese department store, the food is in the basement. Daimaru Kyoto has two basement floors of food: prepared dishes, bento, Japanese sweets and fruit. An underground passage runs from the station, so you stay dry in the rain.

Come up from the north exit afterwards and you are at the entrance to Nishiki Market.

A covered arcade 390 metres long, lined with food shops. For more than 400 years this has been called Kyoto's kitchen. Pickles, yuba, rolled omelette, tofu, fish. Many shops sell small portions to eat on the spot. Eating while walking is not allowed.

Walk through without knowing it and you are out the other end in 20 minutes. Your guide picks the shops with the best of the day.

The wooden stage jutting out from the cliff is the face of this temple. It stands about 13 metres above the stones below, held together by joined timber without a single nail. The temple was founded in 778 and became a World Heritage site in 1994.

"To jump off the stage at Kiyomizu" is a Japanese phrase for making a bold decision.

Wooden houses line both sides of the stone steps. The state has listed this district as a townscape to protect. Down the slope is Ninenzaka, where a Starbucks occupies a house more than 100 years old. Upstairs are three tatami rooms you enter with your shoes off.

Fall on this slope and you will die within three years. The saying appears in a book from 1679. The steps are steep, so it is a warning to watch your feet.

A 46-metre pagoda at the top of the slope, and the landmark of this area. The present pagoda was rebuilt in 1440. It is said to have stood on this spot since the Asuka period. Walk down the slope and there is a place where the pagoda stands straight ahead of you.

You can climb to the second level inside, on days when it is open. It is the only five-storey pagoda listed as an Important Cultural Property that you can go up.

A wide street paved from side to side with stone. The wife of the warlord who unified Japan in the 16th century lived here for 19 years after his death. Her name, Nene, is the name of the street.

The temple she built to mourn her husband stands just east of the street. It was founded in 1605.

A vermilion gate stands at the end of the street. This shrine holds the Gion Festival, the biggest festival in Kyoto. It began in 869, when 66 halberds were raised in prayer during an epidemic.

The grounds are open 24 hours, and there is no entrance fee.

A stone-paved street lined with lattice-fronted townhouses. Tea houses where geiko work stand along it. The power lines were buried and the stone paving laid in 2001. In the evening the lights in the shops begin to come on.

The narrow lanes off the main street are private. Photography is banned there, and signs say so. Your guide will show you where you may go.