Daikanyama is the grown-up version of west Tokyo — quieter than Shibuya up the hill, more considered, a neighbourhood that reads books and watches its architecture. Three kilometres downhill from the bookshops to the river, best in the afternoon when the shops are open and the light goes long over the water.
Start at Daikanyama T-Site, the Tsutaya bookshop everyone means — three glass pavilions, the best magazine wall in the city, a lounge upstairs. Then Hillside Terrace, Fumihiko Maki's low white complex along Kyu-Yamate-dori, built and rebuilt across thirty years and still the calmest stretch of street in Tokyo. Drift through the boutique lanes without a map; the grid is small enough to get lost in safely.
At Saigoyama Park the ground tips and the walk changes — behind you the shops, below you the Meguro-gawa (river). Down to the water, where cherry trees lean across the canal from both banks. In early April it's a tunnel of blossom and serious crowds; the rest of the year it's a green corridor of cafes, which is when I'd take it.
Follow the river southwest to Nakameguro, the bars under the railway arches, the Hibiya line home.
