Kagurazaka is the slope of hidden lanes — a stone-paved hill that was a geisha quarter, became 'little Paris', and somehow holds both at once. Walk it uphill in the evening, when the lanterns come on and the cobbled lanes do their best work.
Start at the bottom by Iidabashi, where moat meets canal, and climb. Partway up, Zenkoku-ji sets its red gate back from the slope — the temple to Bishamonten, and the old heart of the place. The reward is in the alleys off the main run: Hyogo Yokocho and Kakurenbo Yokocho, cobbled and black-walled, lined with the discreet fronts of ryotei — exclusive traditional restaurants you walk past rather than into. 'Kakurenbo' means hide-and-seek, for lanes that fold so a geisha could lose a follower.
Then the other half: the bistros and patisseries that earn the 'little Paris' tag without irony. End uphill at Akagi-jinja, the shrine Kengo Kuma rebuilt in 2010 in glass and timber — a shrine facing forward, a minute from lanes that face the past. The Tozai line at Kagurazaka takes you out.
