Saga-Toriimoto is the Arashiyama nobody photographs — the lane above the bamboo, where the crowds thin to nothing and the houses still wear thatch. Three and a half kilometres uphill and back, through a preserved street, a moss garden, and a field of eight thousand stone buddhas.
Start at the Randen terminus and climb away from the river. Gioji comes first: a single small -ji (temple) under moss so deep it looks upholstered, best after rain. Above it begins the protected street itself, thatched farmhouses and machiya townhouses with the cars and the signage stripped out — the upper end is the older one. At the top, Adashino Nenbutsu-ji holds its field of weathered stone figures, gathered from lost graves; it's quiet, and the bamboo behind it quieter still.
Turn at the Atago Torii, the stone gate to the mountain pilgrimage, and come back down through the rice plots and persimmon trees of the upper Sagano. End at Seiryo-ji's open courtyard, then a few minutes to Saga-Arashiyama and the train.
