Nanzen-ji: the great gate and the aqueduct
A colossal Zen gate, a Meiji brick aqueduct in the trees, and the incline up to Keage. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Nanzen-ji Sanmon
The great wooden gate at the head of the complex, two storeys and a famous line from a kabuki thief about the view from the top. Pay the small fee and climb the steep inner stair; the upper gallery looks out over the temple roofs and into the hills.

2. Hojo and the rock garden
The abbot's quarters behind the gate, with a *teien* (garden) of raked gravel and a single arrangement of stones called 'the tigers crossing'. Sit on the veranda a while; this is the *-ji* (Zen temple) doing the thing Zen temples do best.

3. Suirokaku aqueduct
The Meiji-era brick aqueduct striding straight through the temple grounds, arches like a Roman ruin dropped into a Zen wood. Built in the 1880s to carry Lake Biwa's water over the hills; walk up beside it and the water's still running in the channel on top.

4. Nanzen-in
A subtemple tucked behind the aqueduct, with a pond garden laid out below the arches and a great deal less company than the main hall. The reason to come back here is the quiet; the maples turn it gold in November.

5. Konchi-in
A subtemple at the front of the complex with a garden attributed to Kobori Enshu, a crane-and-tortoise arrangement in raked gravel. Often skipped for the gate; a small fee, and you'll likely have the veranda to yourself.

6. Keage Incline
Up the lane, the old railway slope that once hauled boats between canal levels, its rails still set in the ground and cherry trees grown up between them. Walk the disused track back toward the *Tozai* subway; in April it's a tunnel of blossom.

Nanzen-ji: the great gate and the aqueduct