Tofuku-ji: the maple ravine and the Zen gardens
A great Zen temple, the bridge over the maple gorge, and a checkerboard of moss and stone. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Sanmon gate
Walk in from the station and the *Sanmon* announces the scale — the oldest Zen main gate in Japan, from 1425, two storeys of dark timber on a stone base. You can't usually go up, but stand under it and look at the bracketing; nothing else south of the river is this old and this big.

2. Hojo gardens (the checkerboard)
The abbot's hall, ringed on four sides by gardens the modernist Shigemori Mirei laid out in 1939. The famous one is the north garden — square stones set into a grid of moss that dissolves toward the edge. A separate ticket; pay it, this is the reason to come.

3. Tsutenkyo bridge
The covered wooden walkway flung across the *Sengyokukan* ravine, a sea of maples below. In late November it's the most photographed view in southern Kyoto and rightly so; any other season it's a quiet crossing with the green light coming up through the leaves.

4. Kaisando hall
Across the bridge, the founder's hall has its own small garden — raked gravel one side, a pond and a clipped hillside the other, oddly formal for a Zen temple. Few people cross the bridge to see it; you'll likely have the veranda to yourself.

5. Komyo-in
A subtemple a short walk south, its garden a sweep of moss and stones arranged so the rocks seem to throw out rays of light. Often empty, always open to a small donation. The kind of place you sit longer than you meant to.

6. Sennyu-ji approach
If there's time, the lane east climbs toward *Sennyu-ji*, the imperial mortuary temple, through a wooded valley most visitors never reach. Walk as far up the cedar avenue as you like, then double back to Tofukuji station for the train.

Tofuku-ji: the maple ravine and the Zen gardens