Nezu and Sendagi: the Yanesen lanes
A vermilion torii tunnel, an azalea garden, and the quietest backstreets in central Tokyo. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Nezu-jinja
Start at the *jinja* (Shinto shrine), one of Tokyo's oldest, the main hall in deep vermilion and green. The shrine survived the war intact, which almost nothing in the city did — a rare original.

2. The torii tunnel
Behind the main hall, a corridor of small vermilion *torii* gates climbs the slope, the way Kyoto's Fushimi Inari does but in miniature and almost empty. Walk up slowly; this is the photograph, and you'll often have it to yourself.

3. Nezu-jinja azalea garden
The hillside garden inside the shrine grounds is thousands of azaleas — a wall of pink and red for a few weeks from late April, plain green the rest of the year. Worth the small fee only in bloom; in season it's the best reason to come now.

4. Nezu and Sendagi backstreets
North through the *Yanesen* lanes — the old shops, the small galleries, the timber houses that the bombs and the developers between them never reached. Potted plants on every doorstep; turn wherever it looks narrowest.

5. Dangozaka
The 'dumpling slope' between Sendagi and the temple district, once famous for its chrysanthemum-doll displays. The name and the gentle climb survive; pause at the top for the view back down the lane.

6. Kayaba Coffee
A 1930s corner *kissaten* (old-style coffee house) on the edge of the quarter, the yellow-and-green frontage left as it was. The egg sandwich is the order; sit upstairs if there's room, then Sendagi is a few minutes on.

Nezu and Sendagi: the Yanesen lanes