Four classic areas of Kyoto in one day.

This is the original shrine behind the roughly 30,000 Inari shrines across Japan. Vermilion gates line the hillside and you walk up through them. The further you go, the closer together they stand, and the light changes. We turn back at the Neagari-no-Matsu pine.

Every gate was donated by someone. The donor's name and the year are carved on the back.

Japan's best-known bamboo grove. Bamboo fills both sides of a path about 400 metres long. When the wind passes, the leaves sound all at once above your head. Nonomiya Shrine, on the way, is known for matchmaking.

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

The bamboo path ends at a river. The bridge is 155 metres long, but the view is the mountain above it rather than the bridge itself. Cherry blossom in spring, red leaves in autumn: the whole mountain changes colour. We turn back before crossing.

The name comes from an emperor who said the moon looked as if it were crossing the bridge.

A World Heritage site. Stand in front of the pond and the golden building appears twice, once above the water and once in it. The route is one way, and you cannot go inside. This is a place you look at from outside.

It has three floors, each in a different architectural style. Only the top two are covered in gold leaf.

We stop for lunch near Kinkaku-ji. Soba and udon shops are common here. It gets busy, so your guide will have a few places in mind.

A World Heritage site. The temple dates from 778. Its wooden stage juts out from the hillside on a frame of pillars, about 13 metres up, roughly the fourth floor of a building, looking over the city. Below it, the Otowa waterfall falls in three separate streams.

Japanese has a phrase, "to jump off the stage at Kiyomizu", meaning to make a bold decision. This is where it comes from.

A townscape protected by the state. Wooden houses built between the Edo and Taisho periods still stand on both sides of the slope. Tea shops and Japanese sweet shops line the way. From here we walk down the stone paving to Yasaka Shrine.

There is a saying that if you fall on this slope you will die within three years. So everyone walks slowly.

A five-storey pagoda, seen looking up from the slope. Only the pagoda rises above the tiled roofs of the town. It is one of the most photographed views in Kyoto.

The pagoda you see was rebuilt about 600 years ago. It has stood on this spot far longer than the temple buildings around it.

A quiet street of stone paving. It leads to the place where Nene, wife of the warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi, spent her later years. Step away from the crowded slope and it goes quiet at once.

A street named after a woman is unusual in Japan.

The head shrine of about 2,300 shrines. Kyoto people call it Gion-san. The Gion Festival, which has run for about 1,150 years, is still held by this shrine every year.

The main hall became a National Treasure in 2020, which is recent for a shrine.

Walk through Hanamikoji, with its stone paving and wooden lattice fronts, and you reach a small river called the Shirakawa. Tatsumi Bridge is the stone bridge under the willows. The townhouses and the willows are mirrored in the water.

Maiko are not a show for visitors. They still work in this district.