Kinkaku-ji and the north-west
The Golden Pavilion, the most famous rock garden in the world, and the road between them. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Kinkaku-ji
Start at the gate when it opens at nine — the Golden Pavilion doubled in its pond, gold leaf against the trees, before the coaches arrive. The path is one-way and short; you don't linger here, you orbit once and leave with the picture.

2. Kinukake-no-michi
The temple road that strings the three together, named for a silk veil an emperor once hung over the hill. Twenty minutes of quiet residential street; walk it rather than wait for a bus that does the same in less.

3. Ryoan-ji
Fifteen stones in raked gravel, and nobody agrees what they mean. Sit on the veranda of the *hojo* (abbot's hall) and look — you can never see all fifteen at once from any single spot, which is said to be the point. The pond garden below is the part most people miss.

4. Ryoan-ji Kyoyochi pond
Before you leave Ryoan-ji, drop to the lower garden and walk the Kyoyochi pond — older than the rock garden, with a small island shrine and ducks. Almost everyone skips it for the gravel; have it to yourself.

5. Kitano Tenmangu
The *jinja* (Shinto shrine) for Sugawara no Michizane, god of learning — students come before exams to buy *ema* plaques. Plum trees fill the grounds; late February is the bloom and the reason locals come. The market fills the place on the 25th of each month.

6. Kamishichiken
Kyoto's oldest *geisha* quarter runs east of the shrine — dark wooden teahouses, lanterns, the odd *geiko* hurrying between appointments at dusk. Walk Kamishichiken-dori slowly, then the Randen tram terminus is a few minutes south.

Kinkaku-ji and the north-west