Yoshida Hill and the university quarter
A shrine on a wooded hill, the old Shinshindo café, and Kyoto University's bookshops. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Yoshida-jinja
Up the wooded slope of Yoshida hill to the *jinja* (shrine) of the Yoshida family, who once held the right to certify shrines across the country — quiet power, in a quiet grove. Climb past the lanterns; on a weekday you'll likely have the steps to yourself.

2. Daigenkyu
Near the top, the unusual octagonal hall built to enshrine every god in Japan at once — a sixteenth-century one-stop arrangement that says a lot about the family's ambitions. You can't go in, but walk around it; the eight-sided shape is the point and it rewards a slow circle.

3. Kyoto University clock tower
Down the hill's west side to the university's main gate and the brick clock tower behind it. The campus is open to walk through — students cycling, noticeboards thick with circle posters and protest flyers. The café under the clock tower is open to anyone; a cheap coffee among undergraduates.

4. Hyakumanben and the student cafés
The crossing named for the temple on its corner, ringed by the cheap eateries and coffee houses that feed the university — set-meal counters, a long-running curry shop, second-floor cafés you'd never find without looking up. Pick one off the main road; the back ones are better.

5. Shinshindo Imadegawa
The original branch of Kyoto's oldest bakery-café, in a dark wooden room with long communal tables that has fed students since 1930. Order the bread and a coffee and sit where generations of the university have sat to argue and revise. The room is the reason, not the menu.

6. The secondhand bookshops
The everyday-Kyoto streets between Hyakumanben and the river, where the university's secondhand bookshops cluster — stacks spilling onto the pavement, academic Japanese, the odd English shelf. Browse without buying, then drift down to *Demachiyanagi* for the Keihan line.

Yoshida Hill and the university quarter